Larry Hayes Partners
Issue: 8   
May, 2011  
Larry Hayes Partners
Greetings!

May 2-6 is Teacher Appreciation Week in the USA.  I've had a bunch of really good teachers, chances are you have too.  In honor of teachers and their contributions to us, I offer this newsletter in thanksgiving.

 
Professor Cows Foot

Gertrude Kuehefuhs was her name.  Kuehefuhs is a German family name.  Kuehe is the pural of cow (Kuh is the singular), Fuhs is a regional German spelling of foot (proper German is Fuss).  She was short of stature, less than 5 feet tall, had a bit of a hunch back, never married, had no children.  She did have about a bazillion cats though.

She came to the US from Germany by boat to go to graduate school in New York City and arrived in 1938 on the day that Hitler marched on the Sudetenland.  There was no turning back.  She had not even a hint of a German accent in her English by the time I met her in 1971.

Professor Kuehefuhs was a music teacher of mine - Theory and Composition.  I was not a theory/comp major, thus she was my teacher for some lower level courses on music theory, form and analysis, and sight-singing.

By 2011 standards, she wouldn't fit in.  Why?   She didn't grade on the curve.  She didn't accept excuses as to why homework wasn't turned in on time.  It wasn't relative to her, it was absolute.

I'd heard rumors of what a hard teacher she was.  Most of my classmates would rather have anyone other than her for their teacher.  I rose to the challenge and signed up for her class.  My, oh my, what a fantastic teacher she was, all the above notwithstanding!  She had a passion and a flair for her subject matter, accepted nothing less than perfection in her students' work.  She just had a way of presenting material that made sense to me, and to anyone who was bold enough to sign up for her class.  I and a handful of classmates became her groupies.  We signed up for anything she was teaching, and never regretted a minute of it.

She busted my chops in a sophomore year sight-singing final, in which I had to sing a Mozart piece, a running series of eighth and sixteenth notes which I was to sing in solfeggio (that whole system of do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do popularized by Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music).  It was written in F Major, but Professor Kuehefuhs, knowing I had perfect pitch, gave me a tonality of A-flat major instead, thus busting my chops.  (Perfect pitch is the ability to identify or re-create a given musical note without the benefit of an external reference.  This means - I see an F, I sing an F.  No one has to give it to me, I just hear it in my head.)  When she gave me a tonality of A-flat major, circuits in my brain mis-fired.  I knew what F should sound like, and she wasn't giving it to me.  Without saying a word, she gave me this wry smile and indicated to proceed.  I got through it, got my A, and went out for a beer.

Because I was not a composition major, I maxxed out on her course offerings by the end of my sophomore year.  By the end of my junior year, I had run out of money and was faced with dropping out.  Somehow, she found out about it and rounded up a whole bunch of summer lawn care work with all the music school faculty - she kept me busy 10 hours a day, five days a week.  She bought the lawn mower and all the hand tools I would need to do the work.  And she recommended me for a church organist role that I landed and worked through my senior year.  I earned enough money from those two jobs to pay my senior year expenses.

During Christmas break of my senior year, I had a bone tumor removed from my left hip.  I was supposed to be on crutches only a few days, but it ended up being weeks.  On my first day back in class after New Years, I had to walk, on crutches, about a mile from my off-campus apartment to my classroom building.  In those days there was less of a focus on handicap access and she observed me scooting up the steps to Hughes Hall on my backside because I couldn't climb the steps with crutches and books in hand (apparently backpacks had not yet been invented).  After clucking her tongue at me, she informed me that she would pick me up at my apartment every morning at 7:40am, drop me off at the music building and would carry my books up the steps and into my classroom for me, and deliver me back home each night after class ended at 6pm.  This went on until well into March that year.  One day I had the unmitigated gall to not be ready until 7:45am.  I got an earful about personal responsibility.  Five minutes count, after all!

After graduation I began a music teaching job in Zanesville, OH at a junior high school.  One of the courses I was teaching was music appreciation.  She found out about it, wrote me a letter (this was before Al Gore invented the internet and email), volunteering to come  and co-teach a class with me.  What an incredible day that was.  She had a way of relating to kids even in junior high school that I could only sit back and marvel at.  Incredible!

She and I stayed in touch by letter, which unfortunately became less and less frequent. She died in 1987. There are two scholarships that bear her name, one at The Ohio State University and the other through The Roman Catholic Diocese of Columbus.

And here I sit in 2011, still in awe of her as a teacher and as a person.  Professor Kuehefuhs, thank you.  Rest in peace.

Quadratic equations are good for you.   

 

Or so said one Philip Goodrich, my high school AP Algebra II teacher.

 

A quadratic equation is a polynomial equation of the second degree, the general form is ax2 + bx + c = 0 where x represents a variable and a, b  and are constants with a ≠ 0(If a = 0, the equation becomes a linear equation.)   

 

Got that?  Do you even care?

 

 I didn't think I would, and I was just suffering this course to get into college.  Do the homework, take the tests, move on.  And then comes along Mr. Goodrich.  For the first time in my life, math was fun.  He handed us all kinds of everyday questions that had mathematical answers, problems that we would encounter in real life.  And he helped me understand this one big honkin' axiom:  big problems are really only a combination of little problems.  Solve the little problems and the big problem solves itself, which, in itself is a pretty good life lesson.

 

For the one big honkin' axiom, THANKS MR. GOODRICH!    

 

And, oh yeah, my memory is not so good as to remember the definition of the general form of quadratic equations.  For that, I thank Wikipedia.  

 


You could be the next John Philip Sousa
Mr. Larry K. Wilson told me that.
I didn't even know who John Philip Sousa was, thus, I decided not to care.

Mr. Wilson was my junior high school band director.  He saw potential in me and my musical abilities that I didn't know I had, nor had anyone else ever remarked on.  It had not even occurred to me to be musical, 3rd chair clarinetist that I was.  But Mr. Wilson invested in me, moved me to Bass Clarinet, and by 9th grade to Bassoon.  Suddenly I was in demand. Who knew?  There are some zippy-cool licks that are assigned to bassoon parts. Surely, you know that bassoon part in The Teddy Bear's Picnic! Outside the scope of band, he started teaching me music theory and music history.  He took an annual trip to see shows on Broadway and came home with band arrangements in hand that were written at a level that we junior high schoolers could learn and perform.  He made a really big deal out of our band concerts and we played to packed houses.  We were in parades, rain or shine.  He raised money for some simple band uniforms, which we had never had before.

When I went on to The Ohio State University to study music, he called me frequently and asked me about my homework, what was I working on, how could he help me...  When I graduated, I returned to my home school system and became his assistant, he was now at the high school and I moved into his former junior high spot.  I watched closely how he invested energy in his students, how he lifted them up when they were down.  How he stretched their vision of themselves, offering them challenges that they would never have signed up for on their own, just as he had with me.  Going to contest, both band and solo contest, and returning with Superior ratings became our norm.  We expected nothing less of ourselves.

Just like Professor Cows Foot, Larry never married nor had any children.  I don't think he even had cats.  His family was his students, present and past.

Larry died a violent death in the fire at the Dupont Plaza Hotel on December 31, 1986 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, an arson that was started by three disgruntled employees. He was one of 97 people who died that night.  I was organist at his memorial service, at which all of his students came in uniform and stood at attention around the nave of the Grace Church of the Second Street Methodist Society.  I didn't want them to see me cry as I played through my tears.

I didn't make John Philip Sousa status, but I sure am one heckuva a musician, even to this day.  And Larry, I owe that to you.  

 

Who We Are

Larry Hayes Partners, LLC is a Coaching organization, working with private and corporate clients in the areas of Leadership Development and Business Development.  We work with leadership teams, high potential talent, and sales people and teams to help them clearly define goals for growth and change, develop action plans, anticipate and work through obstacles, implement actions and measure results. Additionally we are available to do keynote presentations at meetings and conferences, and facilitate offsite meetings.  If it is time for you or someone in your organization to work on new goals and change, contact us.  Our first session is complimentary.

You can see more on our website: Larry Hayes Partners

Sincerely,


Larry Hayes, CPC
Executive Coach and President
Larry Hayes Partners, LLC


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In This Issue
Professor Cows Foot
Quadratic equations are good for you
You could be the next John Philip Sousa