A Leading Lady in the Performing Arts : Voluntarism: Ruth B. Shannon directed campaign to build center named for her at Whittier College. It opens Nov. 7.

If a task is once begun, never leave it till it’s done. Be the labor great or small, Do it well or not at all. --Proverb

“My mother taught me that,” Ruth Shannon says. “All of our children recite it.”

Ruth Shannon lives it. Her most recent labor is the Ruth B. Shannon Center for the Performing Arts on the Whittier College campus. The grand opening will be celebrated Nov. 7 with a concert by Henry Mancini and his orchestra in the Spanish Colonial revival-style center, which boasts a 500-seat theater, classrooms and faculty space.

A Whittier trustee for nearly a decade, Shannon led the campaign to raise nearly $9 million. “I don’t know if I was chosen, or if I volunteered--a little of both,” she says. “I’ve had a wonderful life. I really believe God put me on Earth for a reason. I suppose some people think me a do-gooder (but) I don’t think of myself that way. I like to make the world a better place.”

She recalls the groundbreaking. “It was 21 days after the Whittier earthquake. And it poured down rain, but it was very exciting. And it gave the community great hope: If the college was going to go ahead, then they could. At the time, 32 Whittier buildings had to be razed, more than 200 homes had to be rebuilt. The college had $500,000 in earthquake damage.”

There is hardly a charitable group in Whittier that has not made a contribution to the performing arts center. The college’s 30 trustees have made sizeable donations. And the gift of Shannon and her husband, E. L. Shannon Jr., tops $1 million.

“The first thing you have to do in good works,” says Shannon, “is make your own commitment of time and resources.” And her community devotion is broad--Scouts, PTA, YMCA, United Way, Whittier Historical Society, Presbyterian Intercommunity Hospital Foundation, Assistance League. “And Ed and I sang in the choir at First Christian Church for 25 years. I’m a trustee in the church.” She also serves as a Huntington Library Overseer and on the board of the Nixon Foundation.

Her private life centers on her travels, collections and sophisticated lifestyle at Mammoth, where the Shannons gather for Christmas skiing, and at Rancho Santa Fe, where they entertain corporate leaders. And there are dinners at the White House and close friendships with numerous Presidents and heads of state, in and out of office.

E. L. Shannon Jr. is president and chief executive officer of Santa Fe International Corp. The company was sold in 1981 to the Kuwaiti Petroleum Co., which is owned by the Kuwaiti government, now in exile. Santa Fe’s drilling has continued in other parts of the world.

The Shannons have been married 43 years. What makes a happy marriage? “Having a great husband,” Ruth Shannon says. “We got married for keeps. It never occurred to us that we wouldn’t be married for life. And, we’ve never had a boring moment.

“We’ve lived in Australia, six months in the outback with Ed the head petroleum engineer for a crew drilling for oil--they’ve never found any oil there yet.” In Peru and Venezuela 34 years ago, Shannon taught women, who were not allowed to vote, to speak English. And since 1963, they have traveled to the Middle East countless times.

Decorating their home called Casa Colina are an antique Kuwaiti window, a Bedouin chest and framed photos of the couple with Presidents Ford, Nixon, Reagan, Carter and Bush, as well as Henry Kissinger, Jeane Kirkpatrick and Anwar Sadat.