By Mary Owen
After teaching music for 37 years, Patty Keeton is retiring.
“I’m gradually coming to the reality that I will be done with my full-time teaching career as a music educator,” Keeton said. “I am planning things for next year that I have never had time to do. I am planning to focus my time and energy on the visual arts and dance, and, of course, I will still be involved in musical activities.”
Keeton began her lengthy affinity with music by playing clarinet in her fifth-grade band when she was still known as Patty Neuenschwander.
She started private piano lessons a year later, and by the time she reached high school, had 25 piano students of her own. She was on the Stayton High School dance team for four years as well as participating in Symphonic Band, Hungry Five Band, Dixie Six Band, Concert Choir and the Swing Jazz Choir. During her junior and senior years at SHS, she also began cadet teaching first grade general music classes at Stayton Elementary.
She not only excelled at music, but graduated from SHS with honors in 1971, and was voted by her senior class as “most talented, most friendly, most likely to succeed.”
In 1971, Keeton began her studies at what is now Western Oregon University in Monmouth, majoring in French and music.
“Even though I had a passion for foreign language, I had to drop the French major to keep up with the music courses,” she said. “I had no idea majoring in music was going to be so tough. We started out with over 150 music majors in my freshman year. Four years later, 13 of us graduated.”
A bachelor’s of education followed as well as an internship and her first teaching contract at age 21.
“I survived my first year of teaching in McMinnville,” Keeton said of McMinnville Junior High School. “And in June of 1975, I gratefully and happily accepted a teaching position at Sublimity School to be their very first music teacher.”
“The parents, students, staff and community embraced me in the most wonderful and supporting way,” she said of her work at Sublimity School, which came a weekend after her father died in 1975. “I will never forget that, and my loyalty and devotion to the students, school and community will remain even when I leave my teaching position here.”
Keeton’s daughters are Karly, a music specialist for the Salem-Keizer School District, and Kaycie, a bank manager in North Carolina. She is married to Kenny, whom she met at Elmer Fery’s strawberry patch when she was 10 and he was 12.
“He became a wonderful friend and spiritual mentor to me in high school,” she said. “We didn’t become serious until college.” The couple married in December of 1974. They now have two grandsons, Maxwell, 3, and Mason, 1, Karly’s sons.
“Of course, my family comes first in my life,” Keeton said. “But professionally, my love is first of all my students, my second love is my music, and my third love is this absolutely divine school that has allowed me to be so happy and healthy for many, many years. My blessings come from God and He knew where I needed to direct my rather insane and creative energy. I count my blessings every day.”
Community members are invited
to a “retirement party” honoring
Patty Keeton’s 37 years of teaching.
“Music Makes a Difference” starts at
noon Saturday, May 21, with a barbecue at 1 p.m.
From 1 to 4 p.m., there will be live
music performances, featuring a group of
former Stayton boys, Running Wild, and
other performers.
From 3 to 4 p.m., Keeton’s husband
Kenneth’s will celebrate his 60th birthday.
The retirement party will be filmed by
Capitol City Video, and DVDs
will be sold for $10.
Owner/operator David McGinnis said
all the profits will be directed into the
North Santiam Schools Foundation,
the charitable foundation that manages
the budget for the North Santiam Fine
Arts Festival.
Students and staff at Sublimity School will join others in the community in celebrating Keeton’s teaching career with an afternoon “retirement party,” Music Makes a Difference, from noon to 4 p.m. on May 21 at Sublimity School.
After retiring in June, Keeton plans to dabble more in watercolor painting, photography, dance and music.
“I want to create a photo botany journal of the wildflowers of the Oregon outback so during the blooming seasons I will be able to identify the flowering plants of that area for each month of the year,” she said. “I also want to develop a senior citizen creative movement class and to take up ballroom dancing.”
Keeton also plans to become involved with senior citizens in acting and music as well as dance. She will direct the North Santiam Fine Arts Festival next year. She will continue to give applied studies in piano as well as teach music education and pedagogy courses at Corban University.
“And maybe volunteer at Sublimity School with music classes,” she added. “I think I may be able to impact music education in our school district in a more effective way being a taxpayer versus a teacher.”
Keeton believes “music does something to a person’s ability to learn effectively as well as feel emotions at a very intimate level.
“Music has been the catalyst in my journey through life,” she said. “I know music will certainly be an avenue for me to go and do anything I choose the rest of my life. To love music is to love life!”
