Get To Know The EPHS Music Teachers!

BY FINNLEY ABBOTT

MIKE WHIPKEY - BAND DIRECTOR

Mr. Whipkey has taught band at EPHS for twenty fve years. This year he teaches both ninth-grade bands, Wind Ensemble, and Symphonic Band. His favorite memory from teaching was when he took his students on tour to Germany, Italy, and Austria. The students got the opportunity to eat lunch in St. Peters Square in Venice and then ride in the famous gondolas. Mr. Whipkey believes all students should join music because “it is an artistic force that holds people together and allows us to express and feel the emotion in several diferent ways. It is kind of a mysterious force of nature.”

Mrs. Rowell has been teaching at EPHS for fourteen years. She loves orchestra and teaches all of the orchestra classes here: ninth grade, Philharmonic, Concertino, and Concert. Her funniest memory was during a Disney tour before COVID when a student accidentally broke the neck of a bass. The funny part was the way her students told her–they told her to sit down before they could tell her what had happened. She had thought a student got hurt or worse. When she found out the truth, she could not stop laughing. Mrs. Rowell would love for every student to fnd their passion in music: “I think for a variety of reasons. Number one being there’s a lot of research about how it develops the brain similar to a second language and decoding. So it can help diferent neural connections. There’s a lot of linking to it with like mathematical like, deduction skills and you learn collaboration and leaning on your peers and colleagues. And I think it’s, it can show dedication, and what hard work can pay of for the concert.”

Mrs. Boyd has worked in the choir department at EPHS for sixteen years. She teaches treble, bass, concert, and chamber choir. Her favorite memory of teaching was when she had her students sing in the middle of the United Nations building, and as they sang, diplomats from all over the world stopped what they were doing to listen to them sing. Mrs. Boyd loves the human voice the most, and she believes in her students with her whole heart. “I think it’s a great break in the day. I think it’s a real gift to our students to have the opportunities that they have here. Especially the music opportunities. In a lot of places around the world, you have to pay, you have to be a really rich kid. You have to be in the right city or the right town in order to have access to music programs. I think we forget about how fortunate we are to have music ofered for everybody here as part of [our] education.”

Mrs. Moreaux has been working in the Eden Prairie school district for seven years, both here at the High School and at Forest Hills Elementary. Mrs. Moreaux teaches the Symphonic Orchestra and co-teaches the ninth-grade choirs and Music Insights. Her funniest memory was from when she frst started teaching here at the high school. While she was learning and getting used to her baton it would often catch on the music stand in front of her or she would drop it. One day the baton got caught on her stand again and few out of her hand and landed in one of her students’ hair. This dog-loving teacher loves bringing joy into the school with music: “I think you should do it because it gives you joy. And I just can’t fathom why if you were involved in a community of music making you would ever stop… You could have this joyful experience. And I think we need a little bit more of that.”

BY SOPHIA YOERKS