We did not know it then, but this would be The Job for my career, and I could not have had a better opportunity. The university had been founded in 1890 as Texas Normal College ("normal" meaning teacher training). It went through several names, and after World War II became North Texas State Teachers College, then North Texas State College, next North Texas State University (as it was called in 1962), and finally in about 1990 acquiring the name The University of North Texas (UNT).

My duties began on June 1, 1962 as Coordinator of Graduate Music Education. Dr. Paul Roe was Coordinator of Undergraduate Music Ed. We got along famously, and our wives, Katherine and Maxine, worked well together and had a ball socializing. They were known as "The Gold Dust Twins" when they threw annual parties for the new School of Music faculty. (Paul and I went along for the ride.)

Dean Kenneth Cuthbert was responsible for bringing me to Denton (see another story for details). The Cuthberts, Roes and McGuires all attended the Bungalow Sunday School Class at the Methodist Church, and Ken and Evelyn got in on all the partying as well. Our good friendship lasted about ten years before the "falling out" occurred (another story).

Since my duties began in early June, I had to move to Denton first by myself until things were in order for moving the entire family. I drove to Denton from Beloit in our 1957 Volkswagen "bug," bringing the clothes and school materials I would need for the first few weeks. Katherine would bring the children down in August after a truckload of household goods arrived from Beloit. We had to have a house to live in first!

Another "small" complication arose in late spring, probably in early April. Katherine was at home preparing to join me for a concert on the Beloit College campus and was trying to get little Timothy (then about 3) off his tricycle and into the house for the babysitter. Tim loved riding his trike on the sidewalk in front of our house, and he wasn’t ready to quit. The sidewalk was on a downhill slope there, and after trying several times to stop him verbally, Katherine got in front of Tim on one of his down-hill runs. That maneuver was her undoing. She got hold of the speeding youngster, and the whole outfit went over and crashed right in our front yard. Result: one screaming little boy and one irate mother with a broken right ankle!

This was not good news for a full-time "traveling music teacher" who drove from school to school, not to mention the lady who was organizing our move to Texas. Katherine was in a cast and on crutches for a month, limping in and out of classrooms and grocery stores. While I was in Texas starting a job and securing a house, she was supervising trying to sell our house in Beloit and getting all our earthly belongings trucked to Denton. The limping leg was a serious handicap at our "going away" parties, too, but somehow she managed. She would drive the family car, a 1957 DeSoto, with the three kids to Denton in mid-August. The Lord only knows how she did it all.

In Denton, I rented three different rooms before I found a house for us to rent. It was at 1017 Stanley Street, nearly on the edge of town, and we would be there for three years. It had three bedrooms and two bathrooms (a first-time convenience for us) and was in a nice neighborhood. Mr. Steven Daly, our next-door neighbor, was a genuine handyman who did lots of gratis work for us over the next five years, all simply because he loved our family. (I did pay him something from time to time.) We rented the house for $114 a month.

My starting nine-month salary was $8,250, and I would work through two summer sessions for extra pay, making my total annual take nearly $11,000. It was more than we both had made previously when we taught in Brighton or Beloit. Good news!

Denton ISD superintendent Chester Strickland was one of our Sunday School class teachers, and he had gotten to know us from my song leading and Katherine’s piano playing in church. Early in the fall, he came to Katherine saying, "We’ve had an elementary music teacher resign, and I’d like to have you take her place." Hey! Nice surprise . . . but no go. Since my salary was so good, Katherine decided she would stay at home with this child, instead of having to go to a job every day; and she could also be at home for the other children. Davey was 12 and in 7^th grade at Denton Junior High (also starting on the clarinet). Susan was 9 and in 4^th grade at Newton Rayzor Elementary. Neither school was very far from our house. Susan was again signed up for dance classes and practicing piano at home, and we were all involved in church activities.

I agreed with Katherine’s decision to retire from the teaching business. My only regret was that there would be hundreds of children over the years who would not have the experience of singing as taught by a master teacher. She had a unit on patriotism that was exceptional. She taught those kids to stand and sing enthusiastically as she accompanied them on the piano and joined in the singing. She had great control in the classroom, and all the classroom teachers thought she was "Mrs. Wonderful" with the children . . . which she was!

Katherine was 41 and I would be 40 in November of 1962. We did indeed have the world by the tail on a down-hill pull! We loved Denton and our church, and I was enjoying both my classes and my colleagues - what a talented bunch! Our two older children were doing well in school. And the students in the School of Music? Oh, so talented, and oh, so many! Our enrollment of student music majors at Beloit College had topped at about twelve. In the fall semester of 1962 in Denton, we had 430 music majors! Amazing. I was totally impressed! Instructors and students alike were professionally motivated, big-time! What excitement!

During the summer, Dean Cuthbert had made final class assignments for the fall semester. I would teach Music 528, Admission Seminar, an introductory course to graduate study for master’s degree candidates. It became one of my all-time favorite classes. Then I would teach Music Supervision, plus two undergrad music courses for prospective elementary classroom teachers. I had taught these courses before as a teaching assistant at Indiana University.

Then the Dean said, "You need one more course to fill your load. Look at this list and choose one." The list was lengthy and the choices were many. I finally pointed and said, "I’ll take this one."

"Women’s Chorus?" said the Dean unbelievingly.

"Yup, that’s the one," I responded. I realized immediately that for the first time in my teaching career I would have no performing group to conduct, and with this choice I would still be in the business of active music-making.

It was a happy decision, and over the next three years we gave many satisfying performances. We were able to program Britten’s Ceremony of Carols nearly every Christmas season. Debussy’s Salut Printemps was another favorite.

Then in the spring semester (1963) I was offered another fortuitous change in schedule: I would drop one of the elementary music courses and become conductor of the first regularly-scheduled percussion ensemble at the university! Evelyn Cuthbert, the Dean’s wife, had been visiting her parents in Beloit before our move to Denton and had heard my College Percussion Ensemble in concert there. She came up afterwards and was very complimentary, then reported the event to the Dean and recommended to him that "North Texas should have one of those!" I give Evelyn credit for giving me that opportunity. I kept the Percussion Ensemble until the fall of 1965, when we hired Ron Fink as our first full-time percussion instructor.

Also in 1965, my load of graduate students had increased amazingly. During the fall semester, teaching and advising graduate music education students became my total load. I would also advise doctoral students who were working toward and Ed. D. in Education with a major in music.

We would not have our own doctoral program until the fall of 1971, when our Ph. D. in Music Education was approved. I give Dr. Ed Rainbow and Dean Robert Toulouse credit for helping me get that program approved by the Texas Coordinating Board for Higher Education in Austin.

Enrollment in all our music degree programs grew by leaps and bounds. The Lab Band Department (jazz) was a major draw, but really all areas were bursting with students. We reached our peak enrollment during my tenure as faculty in 1976. In the 14 years I’d been there, we grew from 430 in ’62 to 1,578 music majors in 1976. WOW!! Indiana University was still #1 in the U.S. (and in the world, for that matter), and North Texas was tied for second largest with the University of Cincinnati in Ohio. I have always been proud to have been a part of that history of our renowned College of Music.