Music, teaching go hand-in-hand

This is part of a week-long series in celebration of “Music in Our Schools Week” at Clovis Municipal Schools.

I have certainly been blessed in my lifetime in that I have been able to combine my two great passions — teaching and music.

I began taking piano lessons in Portales when I was 7 years old. They continued through my freshman year of college. In addition, I took lessons on the pipe organ at the Portales First Methodist Church when I was in high school.

But my love for music didn’t stop with the keyboard. I played in band through junior high, high school and college, plus playing in the university orchestra.

All through these formative years, my church played a big part in my musical development.

The head of the school of music at Eastern New Mexico University, C.M. Stookey, taught me and other junior high students how to sing parts and take our places in the adult choir in our church. He was a great influence on my life from junior high through college.

He and Floren Thompson, director of the ENMU bands, were two men I will always look up to and consider true mentors.

Somewhere along the way, I decided to devote my life to teaching young people the wonders and joys of music. I did, in fact, teach for more than 30 years in Dora, Portales and Clovis — 28 of those years at Zia Elementary in Clovis. I found in those years music teaches so many things — not only the ability to work with others and the basics of education, but the love of something that will last us all our lives.

I still devote a lot of my retired life to accompaniment work at Yucca Junior High and playing bells and singing in the chancel choir at First Methodist Church in Clovis. I also get to share my love for the piano with the young students in the piano lab at the Bella Vista Arts Academy.

The eastern side of New Mexico is quite an influence on music education in all of New Mexico because of the great music program in the Clovis schools. This is due, in part, to the great influence of Norvil Howell, another friend and mentor, I am proud to say.

What a joy music has brought to my life. I want to be able to share that joy with children and adults the rest of my life.

In that way, I can pay back those who have taught me, and more importantly, thank God, who gave me the gift of music and teaching.

Jim Elyce Wade was the music teacher at Zia Elementary School for 28 years.