Biography:

As a five-year-old growing up in a small town in Central Texas, I learned that my nine-year-old sister was going to begin piano lessons. I thought I would die if I couldn’t take lessons, too. My folks talked to me, explained that they couldn’t pay for lessons for two girls at the time and I would need to wait until I was nine to begin. My grandparents must have seen the desperation on my face and said they would pay for my lessons and I could go ahead and start. I was thrilled and began a study that was an immediate love for me.

I have been blessed all through my life with the wonderful opportunities I have had to study, learn, listen, experience, enjoy, participate, and teach music! Living in that small Texas town, I took lessons from a wonderful piano teacher, Mrs. Calvin Barkley, who was a graduate of the Eastman School of Music. My grandmother allowed me to experience wonderful music when she took me to Community Concerts at the Baptist College in our town. I went to a high school where Miss Dorothy McIntosh was high school choir director, one of the best in the state of Texas. She gave me opportunities to participate in choir and girl’s trio, singing for activities in our little town and other places all around the state of Texas. Moving to Louisiana with my family opened the door to go to college and get a Bachelor of Music Education degree from Louisiana State University. Again, I was blessed when student teaching assignments were given out and I was placed with Mrs. Betty Addison, an outstanding music teacher in Baton Rouge. Not only did I soak up like a sponge all the wonderful teaching experiences she paraded before me, but we formed a friendship that has lasted through the years.

I have enjoyed years of teaching music and have former students that I keep up with all around the United States: doctors, college music professors, businessmen and women, teachers, performers on Broadway in New York, ministers, and a long list of church pianists and praise band members. What a blessing for a teacher!

I worked my way through LSU teaching piano and then went on to teach music in the East Baton Rouge Parish Schools and later at Parkview Baptist School. In recent years, I have taught piano at my home, having a full studio of students, including many “home-schoolers” who could come early in the day.

I began playing for church services as a ninth grader and have continued throughout my life - either as pianist, praise-team keyboard player, or minister of music.

Music has been my life. Anyone who knows me knows I love kids and I love music. Being able to spend my days teaching music has never been a “job”, but a “joy”!