Melinda Roellig, a teacher of art and music in Sellersbug, Indiana, succumbed to Covid-19 on November 15, 2020.

With great sadness we report that Covid-19 has claimed the life of yet another beloved educator. Melinda Roellig, an art and music teacher from Sellersburg, Indiana, succumbed to the disease on November 15, 2020. She was just 37 years old.

Melinda was born on December 6, 1982, in Scotland, where her father was stationed with the US Navy. As a teen, Melinda attended Jefferson High School, where she played the trumpet and participated in marching band. She also played the trombone and the French horn. The talented future educator also showed an aptitude for art, specifically painting.

After she graduated from, Melinda attended the University of Louisville where she majored in music. She earned her degree in 2006. While still in college, Melinda decided she wanted to become a teacher of art and music.

When she lost her teaching position at the public school due to budget cuts, Melinda applied for a post at Rock Creek Community Academy, a new K-12 charter school in nearby Sellersburg that did not have a music program. But Principal Sara Hauselman hired her to teach art. Melinda taught there for ten years.

“You can’t say this about very many teachers — nobody’s perfect, everybody doesn’t do everything right — but I never saw a kid that did not want to be in her class and didn’t love it once they got in it,” Hauselman said. “Whatever they could do, she just would encourage them.”

To read more about this remarkable teacher, see this obituary published by NBC News.