Tag Archives: Music Teachers

Utah teacher Vanja Watkins has earned renown as a composer

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Music educator Vanja Watkins of Utah has earned renown as a composer of hymns. Photo Credit: BYU Music Group

Our nation’s students are indeed fortunate to have so many talented and dedicated teachers in our schools. One of these is Vanja Watkins, a public school teacher in Utah who has earned renown as a composer of hymns for the Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS).

Vanja earned both her Bachelor’s degree and her Master’s degree at Brigham Young University (BYU) in Salt Lake City, Utah. After earning her degrees, Vanja accepted a position as the Music Coordinator for primary grades in the Ogden School District. The district had its own TV station, KOET (Channel 9), and for three years Vanja’s assignment included teaching a class called “Singing Time” for each grade, kindergarten through 6th, which was aired on that channel once a week. During her third year in that role, she taught the classes on KUED-TV to schools statewide. In 1964, Vanja married and for the next 20 years, she stayed home to raise her children.

When Vanja returned to the teaching profession, she accepted a position at the BYU School of Music, a stint that stretched for five years. Then she returned to Salt Lake City publish schools, where she taught for six years at Washington, Lowell, and Lincoln Elementary Schools. She concluded her career with another five-year stint at BYU. Vanja is now retired, but at age 84 she still teaches music to private students.

Vanja confesses she decided that she would pursue a career as a music teacher when she was a student in high school. “From then on, I really didn’t waver in that decision,” she says. “My high school choral teacher, Edward Sandgren, was truly a mentor for me, not only during my high school years but also when I returned to Ogden to do my student teaching with him at Ben Lomond High School. At that time my goal was to be a secondary choral teacher,” she remembers. “But as I began working with students, I realized that most of them had not had basic musical experiences. I had the distinct impression that the best place for me to begin teaching was in elementary schools,” she continues. “That had never entered my mind before, but it was a very strong impression and I knew I needed to follow it. My dear professor and Music Department Chairman, Dr. John R. Halliday, who directed the BYU Madrigal Singers in which I sang, influenced me to return to BYU for graduate work. He guided me to Lue Groesbeck, who had recently joined BYU’s music faculty to teach elementary music education. I learned so much from her that I could hardly wait to begin teaching. I knew I had found my niche,” Vanje concludes.

In addition to her career as an educator, Vanja has written many hymns for her church. She composed the music for “Press Forward Saints” and “Families Can Be Together Forever,” hymns that appear in the 1985 hymnal for the LDS Church. She also wrote the music for 27 songs that have been included in the church’s Primary Children’s Songbook.

To read an interview with Vanja Watkins, click on this link to Mormon Artist.

Illinois music teacher Dee Green: She was no Stooge

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Illinois teacher Dee Green earned fame in Hollywood when she worked with The Three Stooges in the movie Brideless Groom (1947). Photo Credit: IMDb

Many talented classroom teachers achieve success in fields other than education. One such teacher was Delores Mae Green, who better known as Dee Green.

Dee was a beloved music and choir teacher who was also an acclaimed actress in Hollywood. Her claim to fame is that she worked with the Three Stooges. She is well-known for playing the part of one of Shemp’s potential brides. She was the plain, tall, and fawning Miss Fanny Dinkelmeyer in the comedy short Brideless Groom. She also portrayed the homely and unattractive fiance in I’m a Monkey’s Uncle and the daughter of King Rootintootin’ in Mummy’s Dummies. Unfortunately, Dee’s acting career ended when  a motor vehicle ran over her feet in New York. The accident resulted in the need for orthopedic footwear for the remainder of her life.

Dee was born on November 16, 1916, in Peoria, Illinois. After she concluded her career in show business, she earned her Master’s degree in music. She returned to her home town and taught music and choir classes at Peoria Heights Grade School in Peoria Heights, Illinois, during the 1960’s. Throughout the late 1970’s and early 1980’s she taught Language Arts and Drama at Roosevelt Junior High, which is now known as Rockford Alternative Middle School, in Rockford, Illinois. She produced many annual events, including a production of Babes in Toyland and numerous elaborate Christmas pageants that included every student in the school.

Dee inspired more than one of her students to pursue a career in theater. Some of them eventually earned success on Broadway in New York. She was often described by her students as kind and generous, and a woman of great courage, talent, and vision.

This amazing Chalkboard Champion passed away from cancer on April 24, 1985, in Rockford, Illinois. She was 65 years old.

Music teacher Sarah Mae Lagasca garners coveted Milken Award

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High school music educator Sarah Mae Lagasca of Newark, New Jersey, has garnered a prestigious 2021-2022 Milken Educator Award. Photo credit: milkeneducatoraward.org

It is always a pleasure to share stories about talented educators who have earned accolades for their work in the classroom. One of these is Sarah Mae Lagasca, a high school music teacher from New Jersey, who has garnered a prestigious 2021-2022 Milken Educator Award.

As a music teacher at Arts High School in Newark, Sarah Mae strives to increase her students’ proficiency in music theory, composition, sight reading, vocal technique, music history, recording and production technology, marketing and branding, and personal artistic growth.

Sarah Mae has long been recognized as an innovative instructor. Throughout the pandemic, the honored educator culled and shared a variety of strategies to keep students engaged in her virtual classroom, including breakout rooms, hand signals, recordings, and online programs such as Music First, FlipGrid, and Soundtrap.

As if all that were not enough, Sarah Mae has made significant contributions to music outside of the classroom as well. She has conducted Newark’s All-City Choral Ensemble and organized workshops with professional musicians through the VH1: Save the Music Foundation and GRAMMY Museum. She has performed with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and contributed to various recordings, including Arturo O’Farrill’s “Four Questions,” which won the 2021 Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Album.

Sarah Mae attended the Westminster Choir College, where she earned her Bachelor’s degree in Music Education in 2013. Westminster is a residential conservatory of music formerly located in Princeton, New Jersey. In the Fall of 2020, the college relocated to Rider University’s Lawrenceville campus.

The Milken Educator Awards have been described by Teacher Magazine as the “Oscars of Teaching.” In addition to the $25,000 cash prize and public recognition, the honor includes membership in the National Milken Educator Network, a group of more than 2,700 exemplary teachers, principals, and specialists from all over the country who work towards strengthening best practices in education. Sarah Mae is one of up to 60 educators to receive the Milken Educator Award for the 2021-2022 school year. To learn more, click on Milken Educator Awards.

California music educator Ben Bollinger also a successful entrepreneur

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Music educator Ben Bollinger was also a successful entrepreneur who ran a successful dinner theater in Southern California for more than three decades. Photo credit: Legacy.com

Many classroom teachers also become successful entrepreneurs. One of these was Ben Bollinger, a beloved music educator who established a highly successful dinner theater in the Inland Empire of Southern California.

Ben was born on July 4, 1938, in Anaconda, Montana. As a teenager, Ben moved with his family to Southern California, where he attended Citrus Union High School. After his graduation in 1956, Ben attended first Citrus Community College and then the University of Southern California (USC). There he majored in Music Education, with minors in Voice and Opera. During his college years, Ben performed in several operas at USC’s Bovard Auditorium and the Shrine Auditorium, including classics such as The Ballad of Baby Doe, The Barber of Seville, Simon Boccanegra, Manon Lescaut, and Otello.

After he graduated from USC, Ben accepted a position as the Chair of the Fine Arts Department at Ramona High School in the Riverside Unified School District, where he taught music education from 1962 to 1968.

After his stint at Ramona High, Ben returned to his alma mater at Citrus Community College as a full-time instructor. Under his leadership, the college’s Music Department became one of the most successful programs in the country. The choral group travelled internationally, winning numerous music festivals around the globe, including being the only American choir to win all three categories of the International Choral Festival in Spittal, Austria, in 1979. Over the years, the Singers performed at many major events in the Los Angeles area, including Super Bowl VII at the LA Coliseum, the Rose Parade, Opening Day at Dodger Stadium, the Grand Opening of Ontario Motor Speedway in 1970, and Richard Nixon’s campaign stop at Ontario Airport in 1972. Ben was also earned credit on the 1978 solo album of Gene Simmons from the rock group Kiss, and a select group of the Citrus Singers provided backup vocals on the album. When Ben retired from Citrus College in 2005, he was honored as a Citrus College Faculty Emeritus.

For his work as a music educator, Ben earned many accolades, including being named a Citrus College Distinguished Alumni in 1979-1980 and Glendora’s Citizen of the Year in 1980. Ben was also a successful businessman, opening the Candlelight Pavilion Dinner Theater in 1985. He sketched the idea on the back of a napkin and then made the dream a reality, choosing as the theater’s location the old Claremont gymnasium where he had played basketball during his high school years. The 299-seat dinner theater was a popular location for many years. In recent years, the enterprise was run by Ben’s family, but after a run of nearly four decades, the theater will close its doors next month.

Sadly, Ben Bollinger passed away on Oct. 17, 2018, in Pomona, California. He was 80 years old. To read more about this Chalkboard Champion, see his obituary at legacy.com.

Music teacher Zitkala Sa: Honored by the National Women’s History Project

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Zitkala Sa

Music teacher Zitkala Sa was honored by the National Women’s History Project. Photo credit: Mary Cronk Farrell

Today is the fourth day of Women’s History Month, so I’d like to introduce you to one of the most amazing Chalkboard Champions and political activists in American history. She is Native American Zitkala Sa, whose Indian name translated means Red Bird.

This remarkable educator was born on Feb. 22, 1876, on the Yankton Sioux Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Her father, an American of European descent, abandoned his family, leaving his young daughter to be raised alone by her Native American mother. Despite her father’s absence, Zitkala Sa described her childhood on the reservation as a time of freedom and joy spent in the loving care of her tribe.

In 1884, when she was just eight years old, missionaries visited the reservation and removed several of the Native American children, including Zitkala Sa, to Wabash, Indiana. There she was enrolled in White’s Manual Labor Institute, a school founded by Quaker Josiah White for the purpose of educating “poor children, white, colored, and Indian.” She attended the school for three years until 1887, later describing her life there in detail in her autobiography The School Days of an Indian Girl. In the book she described her despair over having been separated from her family, and having her heritage stripped from her as she was forced to give up her native language, clothing, and religious practices. She was also forced to cut her long hair, a symbolic act of shame among Native Americans. Her deep emotional pain, however, was somewhat brightened by the joy and exhilaration she felt in learning to read, write, and play the violin. During these years, Zitkala Sa became an accomplished musician.

After completing her secondary education in 1895, the young graduate enrolled at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, on a scholarship. The move was an unusual one, because at that time higher education for women was not common. In 1899, Zitkala Sa accepted a position as a music teacher at Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. There she became an important role model for Native American children who, like herself, had been separated from their families and relocated far from their home reservations to attend an Indian boarding school. In 1900, the young teacher escorted some of her students to the Paris Exposition in France, where she played her violin in public performances given by the school band. After she returned to the Carlisle School, Zitkala Sa became embroiled in a conflict with the Carlisle’s founder, Colonel Richard Henry Pratt, when she expressed resentment over the rigid program of assimilation into the dominant /white culture that Pratt advocated. She also objected to the fact that the school’s curriculum did not encourage Native American children to aspire to anything beyond lives spent as manual laborers.

After that, as a political activist, Zitkala Sa devoted her energy and talent towards the improvement of the lives of her fellow Native Americans. The former teacher founded the National Council of American Indians in 1926 and served as its President until her death in 1938. She traveled around the country delivering speeches on controversial issues such as Native American enfranchisement, their full citizenship, Indian military service in World War I, corruption in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the apportionment of tribal lands. In 1997 she was selected as a Women’s History Month Honoree by the National Women’s History Project.

Zitkala Sa: A national treasure and a genuine Chalkboard Champion.

You can read more about Zitkala Sa and the Carlisle Indian School in my book, Chalkboard Champions, available from amazon.