Dedication to students for half a century!

When you are a music major you are assigned a private teacher who you will study with throughout your college career. I am very lucky student in that I have the privilege of studying under Mrs. Penick. Knowing I would study under her is what made my college decision. You cant find a better piano teacher than her anywhere in the southeast or even around the nation. This year her teaching skills were honored when she won Music Teacher of the Year from the Music Teacher's National Association, which she definitely deserved! Almost every lesson she reminds me that she is not here to get all these awards of for her own recgonition, but because we - her students - deserve it.     

Last month Mrs. Penick celebrated being at the University for 54 years. In order to celebrate such a wonderful 54 years, the music school put together a concert featuring many of her amazing alumni. The concert was on a Sunday afternoon in the Concert Hall in Moody. It could probably seat close to 2,000 people or even more and it had to have been at least 50% full. Skipp Snead, the director of the school of music, started the afternoon out with a speech honoring all of her hard work and dedication to the artsand to this University. He did a very interesting visual where he slowly asked different people to stand up. He started with her current students, then alumni students, then students of her alumni students, then people who had seen her television show, and so on. Eventually everyone in the entire hall was standing and he said, "see how many lives you have touched!" Afterwards several of her alumni performed and performed some of the hardest pieces written for piano perfectly. It was an amazing afternoon and the perfect way to honor someone who has been dedicated to her students and this University for over a half a century. 

The afternoon was especially moving for me. My piano teacher from home, who is like a second mother to me, was also a student of Mrs. Penick. She and my mom drove from Huntsville to attend the concert. Before the concert Mrs. Penick, Mrs. Daphne, and I took a picture together, one that I will cherish forever. All of her students are a part of a special family, Mrs. Penick's musical family. It is a family that sticks with you forever and her talents have bonded us all. This is what we know as "local". We may live all over the country, but for this family local is the music and our teacher that bonds us and connects us all to one area. It is a unique bond and one that I feel very privileged to be apart of everyday. 

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My Music Family!