Elsie McCoy ''Sis'' Eidson, an Orlando native who was one of the founders of the organization that grew into the Orlando Opera Company, died Sunday of a heart attack. She was 65.

In 1958, as a member of the Junior League of Orlando-Winter Park, Elsie was finance chairman of the committee that produced the first opera gala concert to benefit the Florida Symphony Orchestra. The gala became an annual event, put on under the FSO's auspices. After the FSO organized the Opera Gala Guild to produce the affairs - in 1963 - she was a perennial leader of its governing board. She worked on the opera galas throughout the 1960s and '70s. In 1978 she was an extra in Giacomo Puccini's Turandot.

Educated at Rollins College and Florida State University, Elsie was an executive for SunBank and was vice president for credit administration before her retirement in 1990. The day before her death, Elsie worked backstage for the Metropolitan Opera National Council auditions held at Rollins College's Annie Russell Theatre. She was a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Orlando and a member of the Rosalind Club.

Sis Eidson was, for a short time, was also a member of the Third Friday Book Club - the longest running book club in the history of Central Florida. The March 1992, meeting notes indicate that she was a "New member as of this month." The last mention in club notes relates to her passing: "During this year we lost two of our members Ginny Bryan and Sis Eidson. Money was sent for book memorials to the Orange Co. Library System." Read more about the Third Friday Book Club at OrlandoMemory.info http://orlandomemory.info/memory/organization/third-friday-book-club.

Survivors include two sons, William Randall Eidson and Frank McCoy Eidson, both of Orlando; a daughter, SueAnn Eidson of Orlando; mother, Elsie Mae McCoy of Orlando; a sister, Sue McCoy Smith of Orlando; and two grandchildren.