Return to Lowell Mason Fellows by Year
2003 Lowell Mason Fellows
Donald Corbett
Educator, Advocate, MENC National President 1986-1988 – Designated by Richard Ives & KMEA (Kansas Music Educators Association)
An outstanding educator who has impacted thousands of students and teachers, Don Corbett was a public school music instructor for many years, followed by several years as a college instructor, including service as Chair of the Graduate Music Program at Wichita State University. Dr. Corbett has served KMEA as State President and Executive Director, MENC as Southwest District President and MENC National President. Don retired from the KMEA Executive Director’s position in June 2003, finalizing 11 years at this post. Don Corbett is an outstanding person infecting everyone he meets with his positive personality and strength of conviction toward music education and life.
Ray Cramer
Educator, Advocate – Designated by Carolyn Manley & Conn-Selmer
Dr. Ray Cramer’s career reflects his life-long commitment to encouraging excellence in music education. His involvement in professional music organizations has provided incredible service to music educators across the country, and around the world. He serves as a wonderful example of leadership for others to follow. Dr. Cramer’s influence extends beyond the students of Indiana University, where he has worked since his original appointment in 1969, to include musicians, educators, and students he connects with during his many appearances throughout the world as a guest conductor, clinician, and adjudicator.
Professor Cramer will retire this year from Indiana University after serving as Assistant Director of Bands from 1969 to 1970, Director of Marching Band and Assistant Director of Bands from 1972 to 1982, Acting Director of Bands in 1981, and as Director of Bands from 1982 to the present. His career has included teaching graduate conducting, band history, and wind literature classes, while maintaining one of the finest university bands in the United States. Dr. Cramer also serves an annual guest residency as conductor of the Musashino Academy of Music Wind Ensemble in Tokyo, Japan.
Throughout his busy and demanding career, Dr. Cramer has remained a loyal mentor and friend to students and associates. Students know they can rely on him for advice and counsel to assist them in their journey, pursuing his legacy of inspired teaching. Ray Cramer remains a true advocate of music education, continually and actively promoting music in our schools.
Deborah Craven
Educator, Advocate, Founder of the Craven Academy of Performing Arts – Designated by Darlene George Craig, The Craven Academy
Deborah Craven’s experiences during more than thirty years of teaching led her to develop her own teaching methodology, “The Miss Debbie Series,” along with four levels of pedagogy study materials, which blend traditional and Suzuki teaching styles that allow children as young as three years of age to learn to play the piano. At a time when traditional methods would have a youngster just beginning to play, “The Miss Debbie Series” has children well on their way to note reading, opening a world of possibilities for young minds, and instilling in them a tremendous sense of confidence and accomplishment as they achieve success playing the piano at such an early age. In 1994, Dr. Craven founded the Craven Academy of Performing Arts, which now serves over 200 students and employs six certified teachers. She has orchestrated musical compositions for advanced, intermediate, and beginning pianists to perform together as part of an orchestra. Under her direction, the Academy’s keyboard orchestras have performed at Carnegie Hall, Madison Square Garden, the USS Intrepid, The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Baseball Hall of Fame, Hershey Park, and Disney World. They have toured throughout Austria, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland, and in 2004 will perform at Royal Albert Hall in London, as well as the Main Stage at Oxford Town Hall.
Dr. Craven supports music education through her involvement in organizations such as the National Guild of Piano Teachers, the American College of Musicians, MENC: The National Association for Music Education, the Music Teachers National Association, the Illinois State Music Teachers Association, the National Association for Young Children, and the International Society for Music Education. She has received the Presidential Seal of Honor for Exemplary Achievement in the Field of Education; the American Medal of Honor for Contributions to Musical Education; the International Order of Merit from St. John’s College, Cambridge University; the Key of Success in Global Relations; the International Cultural Diploma of Honor; the International Peace Prize; the Nobel Prize from the United Cultural Conference for Outstanding Achievement and Contributions to Worldwide Humanity; the Order of International Ambassadors; and the Key of Success as a Leader in Education. In 2001, she was selected as a delegate from the United States for the first-ever music exchange to Cuba. In 2003, she spoke at the World Music Festival in Bergen, Norway.
Dr. Craven skillfully guides children to reach their full potential as pianists, adapting and responding to the distinct needs of each of her students. Students believe in themselves because they know “Miss Debbie” believes in them. It can truly be said that Dr. Craven gives these young performers a world of music, as well as the world in which to perform.
Betty Ellis
Educator, Advocate – Designated by Mel Clayton, Larry Williams, and Bill Larson
Betty Ellis was born and raised in Montana, where she was selected to participate in the All-Northwest Band in 1969, and attended college at the University of Montana for undergraduate and graduate studies. Her student teaching was completed with Bill Larson, who has designated her as a Lowell Mason Fellow. She has taught K-12 music in Centerville, MT, Elementary Band in Great Falls, MT, K-12 music in Glennallen, Alaska, and for the past nineteen years has been an elementary music specialist in Anchorage, Alaska. She has also taught as an adjunct professor for eight years at the University of Alaska, Anchorage.
Ellis has served music educators as a member of the AMEA Board in differing capacities for the past eighteen years, beginning as president of the Alaska Society for General Music, then as president of the Alaska Music Educators Association from 1992 to 1994, and as president of the Northwest Division of MENC from 1999 to 2001. During these same years, she served as the liaison officer for special learners with AKMEA. Ellis also continues to serve as a clinician for Silver Burdett Music Publishers, and is a clinician throughout the Northwest states in the areas of general music and specials learners programs.
Betty Ellis has received recognition as the Alaska Music Educator of the Year in 1994, was a finalist for Alaska Teacher of the Year in 1998, and was recognized for her creative instructional practices by the Anchorage Education Association in 1995. She continues to practice her love of music by playing in numerous music organizations, including the Great Falls Symphony Orchestra, the Missoula, Montana Symphony, the Anchorage, Alaska Symphony, and the Anchorage Opera Orchestra.
John Feierabend
Educator, Author, Advocate – Designated by Robbin Ahrold, BMI
Dr. John Feierabend has been a pioneer in early childhood music education for some twenty-five years, and has developed a number of the most respected and successful programs in the field. Beginning with his work at Temple University in the late 1970’s, through his publication of “Music for Little Children” and his “First Steps in Music” program, no one working with children in the field of music education is unaware of or uninfluenced by his materials.
The classroom lab and research room he has run at the Hartt School of Music in Hartford, Connecticut, his academic home since 1987, continues to be a seedbed for creative thinking and planning. His desire to have all families share music as a daily part of their lives is a goal that fosters not just creative knowledge, but social harmony as well.
Willie L. Hill, Jr.
Educator, Advocate, IAJE Past President, MENC National President 2002-2004 – Designated by Thomas F. Lee
Willie L. Hill, Jr., Director of the Fine Arts Center at the University of Massachusetts/ Amherst and a Professor in Music Education, received his B.S. degree from Grambling State University, and earned M.M. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Colorado-Boulder. Dr. Hill was a Professor in Music Education and the Assistant Dean at the College of Music at the University of Colorado-Boulder for eleven years, and Director of Education for the Thelonious Monk Institute. Prior to his tenure at the University of Colorado, Hill taught instrumental music for sixteen years and served as instrumental music supervisor for four years in the Denver Public Schools. He has been a long time advocate for music education, past president of the International Association for Jazz Educators, and current president of MENC: The National Association for Music Education.
An accomplished performer, Dr. Hill has worked with entertainers such as George Burns, Liza Minnelli, Lena Horne, Lou Rawls, Ben Vereen, Johnny Mathis, Sammy Davis Jr., and Dizzy Gillespie, to name a few. He is a former member of the Denver Broncos Jazz Ensemble; a regular performer at the Denver Auditorium Theater, Paramount Theater, Boettcher Concert Hall and a variety of nightclubs; and guest soloist with the Garden City Community College, Hastings College, the University of Colorado, and the University of Denver Jazz Ensembles. His conducting experiences include numerous DPS Citywide Honor performances, All-State Jazz Ensembles, All-County Bands, and Musical Director at The Schwayder and Bonfils Theaters. As a woodwind specialist, he has been a faculty member of the Clark Terry Great Plains Jazz Camp, Founder and Co-Director of the Rich Matteson-Telluride Jazz Academy, and the Mile High Jazz Camp in Boulder, CO. Hill is a national artist/clinician for Yamaha Musical Instruments Company, and is co-author of Learning to Sight-Read Jazz, Rock, Latin, and Classical Styles, The Instrumental History of Jazz, and Approaching the Standards.
Dr. Hill is currently President of MENC: The National Association for Music Education; as well as Past-President of the International Association of Jazz Educators (IAJE); a member of MENC’s Vision 2020 writing team; a member of the national board of directors for Young Audiences, Inc.; and Past-President of the Colorado Music Educators Association and Pi Kappa Lambda. In 1998, Dr. Hill was inducted into the Colorado Music Educators Hall of Fame, and he received the prestigious Lawrence Berk Leadership Award in 2001, presented by IAJE. Hill is listed in the first edition of Who’s Who Among Black Americans, as well as Who’s Who Among International Musicians.
June Hinckley
Educator, Advocate, MENC National President 1998-2000 – Designated by FMEA (Florida Music Educators Association) & Willie L. Hill, Jr.
As arts education specialist for the Florida Department of Education, June Hinckley led the development of the Sunshine State Standards for the Arts, which are based on the National Arts Standards, and were adopted by the Florida State Board of Education in 1996. Hinckley assists schools and school districts with the implementation of the arts standards and connecting the arts with the state accountability and testing program, and serves as a liaison among the various K-12 arts education groups, higher education, and community arts organizations. She was a founding organizer of the Arts for a Complete Education project, which has coalesced the various community, industry, and school arts organizations in Florida to cooperatively and proactively work to improve the quality and quantity of arts programs throughout the state.
June Hinckley has served as president of MENC: The National Association for Music Education, chair of the National Consortium for Arts Education Association, and represents all the arts on several national committees. She was a member of the writing team that developed the National Standards for Music Education. As MENC president, Ms. Hinckley conceived and initiated Vision 2020: The Housewright Symposium on the Future of Arts Education. This effort has been credited with providing a blueprint for music education for the future that picks up the work done at the Tanglewood Symposium. Ms. Hinckley has received the Hall of Fame Award from FMEA and the ACE of Hearts Award from Arts for a Complete Education/Florida Alliance for Arts Education.
Bill Larson
Educator, Advocate, Musician – Designated by Larry Williams
Bill Larson’s career has spanned thirty-eight years of direct service to the profession, and an additional ten years of service as a field representative for the highly respected Eckroth Music Company. Mr. Larson led bands at Great Falls High School, Montana, which performed at seven regional and national MENC conferences. He has served as president of the Montana Bandmasters Association, the Montana Educators Association, the Montana High School Association Music Committee, and as president of the Northwest Division of MENC.
Mr. Larson has served on the Great Fall Symphony Board, has been a choir director for his church for over thirty years, and has been a faculty member of the regionally prestigious Red Lodge Music Camp and Flathead Music Camp for many years. He also organized the “Winds of Montana,” a community band that is unique because of the vast distances from which its participating musicians come in order to make music (in many cases two or three hundred miles one way). He has appeared frequently as a guest conductor and clinician, has contributed to a number of key issues, most notably “Block Scheduling and Survival Skills of Young Music Teachers,” and several of his articles have been published by MENC.
Bill Larson believes and exemplifies that music educators must be active as leaders locally, that they need to be strong advocates at the local school board level, and that they must develop leadership skills and network beyond their community. He has continually improved his music programs and those of others, and has mentored countless young educators, ceaseless in his determination to improve the success rate and retention of young music educators, and to provide quality experiences for students.
Tim “Dr. Tim” Lautzenheiser
Educator, Advocate, Director of Education – Conn-Selmer University – Designated by John Mahlmann
Dr. Tim Lautzenheiser is recognized and beloved by music students and teachers across the U.S. for his Attitude Concepts for Today leadership and music advocacy clinics and numerous guest-conducting appearances. A graduate of Ball State University and the University of Alabama, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate Degree from Vandercook College of Music. His career as a band director included ten years of university teaching at Northern Michigan University, the University of Missouri, and New Mexico State University. He has authored The Art of Successful Teaching and The Joy of Inspired Teaching, and co-authored the Teaching Music Through Performance in Band series, as well as the Essential Elements/Essential Elements 2000 band methods, published by Hal Leonard Publications. He serves on the Western International Band Clinic Board of Directors, and has remained an integral part of the American Band College since its conception.
Few individuals are able to inspire the profession like Tim Lautzenheiser. His rapport with groups, coupled with his expertise and understanding of the needs and wants of members, has made him a valued friend and advocate for music education.
Carolynn Lindeman
Educator, Advocate, MENC National President 1996-1998 – Designated by Larry Williams
Carolynn A. Lindeman served as president of MENC, and previously as president of MENC’s Western Division, in which capacity she served on MENC’s National Executive Board. She was a member of the MENC National Standards for Music Education Task Force, and has authored a number of publications in the area of elementary music education methodology and class piano, as well as numerous articles. She is the series editor for MENC’s Strategies for Teaching books, a series of thirteen publications designed to help music educators implement the music standards.
Dr. Lindeman distinguished herself and amplified the mission of MENC through her careful nurture of standards-based music education, articulated in such a way as to be accessible by music teachers. She has helped champion the cause of world music and closer understanding among peoples through musical exchanges. In April 2001, Dr. Lindeman led the first delegation of music educators on a People to People Ambassador Program to Cuba. The recipient of two San Francisco State University Meritorious Performance and Professional Promise Awards, Dr. Lindeman was given the California Arts Council 2001 Outstanding Arts Educator Award, the CMEA Award for Extraordinary Service to Music Education in March 2000, and the California Band Directors Association Friends of Music Education Award in February 1999.
Dr. Lindeman is professor of music at San Francisco University. She is a graduate of Oberlin College (B.M.), San Francisco State University (M.A.), Stanford University (D.M.A.), and has studied at the Mozarteum Academy in Austria. Prior to college teaching, she taught and coordinated elementary classroom music programs in New York and California. She serves on the Board of directors for the International Society for Music Education (ISME) and is on the National Committee of Examiners in Music for Educational Testing Service. Lindeman is also on the President’s Committee on the Arts of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Active as a speaker and clinician, she has given presentations throughout the United States, Canada and Europe, Southeast Asia, Mexico, South Africa and Israel.
John Mahlmann
MENC Executive Director (1983 – present), President of National Music Council – Designated by Bob Bergin, Rhythm Band Instruments
Dr. Mahlmann was born in Washington, D.C., in 1942. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in fine arts from Boston University, and a doctorate in education from Pennsylvania State University. He later served on the faculty of both institutions, as well as Texas Tech, Columbia University Teacher’s College, Northern Virginia Community College, and The George Washington University. Most recently, he received an honorary Doctorate of Music Degree from Duquesne University for his contributions to music and education. The National Art Education Association in Reston, Virginia, provided Dr. Mahlmann his first opportunity to combine his love of the fine arts with his knowledge of education and his ability as an administrator and manager. From 1970 to 1982, he administered more than a decade of continuous growth for the organization.
Today, as Executive Director of the world’s largest arts education organization, MENC: The National Association for Music Education, Dr. Mahlmann’s world is largely about music, and ensuring music in the education of every child in America. Since 1983, he has led MENC through a period of substantial membership growth – to more than 90,000 members – and transformed the landscape of music education through innovative programs and vigorous advocacy of music education in our nation’s schools. He played a key leadership role in the development of the National Standards for Arts Education, as well as the National Music Education Standards, both adopted by the U.S. Department of Education. The National Standards represent the first comprehensive set of educational standards for K-12 arts instruction. Among the MENC programs under his stewardship is the “World’s Largest Concert,” an annual PBS presentation that involve s the participation of more than six million children, teachers, parents, and music advocates as part of MENC’s national Music in Our Schools Month.
Dr. Mahlmann is president of the National Music Council, chairs the Consortium of National Arts Education Associations and the National Coalition for Education in the Arts, and serves on the advisory boards of The Hartt School in West Hartford, CT, and MUSICA (The Music & Science Information Computer Archive) in Irvine, CA. He also serves on numerous task forces and certification committees, has contributed to panels and roundtables on arts education, and has judged numerous exhibits and contests. In addition, Dr. Mahlmann speaks frequently and publishes extensively, and has recently been interviewed by Newsweek, Rolling Stone, and CBS News. An eloquent spokesman for arts education who has built a reputation throughout the nation as an effective leader in the field, Dr. John J. Mahlmann’s distinguished career weaves together the twin strands of art and music into a single distinctive contribution to arts education in America.
Dorothy A. Straub
Educator, Advocate, MENC National President 1992-1994 – Designated by Larry Williams
Dorothy Straub served as president of MENC and president of MENC’s Eastern Division, chaired the MENC committee for string and orchestra education, and has co-authored a number of publications in the area of string education, such as TIPS: Establishing a String and Orchestra Program, published by MENC. Ms. Straub long served as Music Coordinator for the Fairfield public schools in Connecticut, and as Orchestra Director at Fairfield High School. Dorothy was also a string and orchestra teacher in the West Port, Connecticut public schools for eight years, and Music Coordinator for the West Port and Fairfield public schools. She is a graduate of Indiana University with Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Music Education, specializing in strings.
Ms. Straub has been the conductor of the concert orchestra of the Bridgeport Symphony Youth Orchestra, and has served as guest conductor for string festivals in numerous states. She also has been a violinist in the Greenwich Symphony and in greater Bridgeport symphony orchestras. She is a distinguished member of the American String Teachers Association, and has been editor of the “School Teachers Forum” in ASTA’s American String Teacher magazine. She also holds memberships in the National School Orchestra Association, the American Federation of Musicians, and the American Orff Schulwerk Society.
During her presidency, Dorothy Straub distinguished herself through her positive influence on people, by building coalitions, and by working closely and harmoniously with MENC staff. She has exhibited excellence in teaching, a commitment to string and orchestra education, and a strong vision for the place of music education in the life of children.
