Music teacher gets her final hurrah

Rawlins Daily Times, Janice Kurbjun

Medicine Bow Elementary School students Caroline Heward, Brandon Lea, Logan Heward and Baylie Farthing created a domino effect as they followed music teacher Jill McCann’s choreography to “You Can’t Stop the Beat.” The song is the finale in Wednesday’s 7 p.m. concert in the school’s gym.


• One Medicine Bow student noted, ‘Mis Macan is the best teacher I have nown.’

By Janice Kurbjun Times staff writer

Facing her final concert at 7 p.m. on Wednesday in the Medicine Bow Elementary School gym, Jill McCann is starting to realize how meaningful her last four years have been as music teacher for the Carbon County District 2 elementary schools.

“They’re just like family,” McCann said of her students and their parents. “Plus, they’re talented, and everyone works together as a team.”

McCann is leaving at the end of the school year to head back to Idaho, where she grew up. But not without leaving a lasting impression on her students.

At the very bottom of his worksheet defining what music is, buried under sketches of treble clefs, scales and a bold outline of the word “music,” Timothy Heward wrote in tiny letters, “Mis Macan is the best teacher I have nown.”

Timothy’s sister Caroline agreed, writing that she likes McCann’s songs and the way she sings them. As part of the concert’s theme, she and her classmates will read their definitions of music. The rest of Caroline’s lists include things associated with the discipline: dancing, songs, melody and rhythm.

For the concert, which is free and open to the public, the girls will be dressed in 1950s poodle skirts and the boys will mimic John Travolta’s jeans and white T-shirt costume in “Grease.” The program includes upbeat songs from the musicals “Hairspray” and “Rigoletto” — along with sign language to fulfill state requirements — to a rendition of Barry Manilow’s “One Voice,” to be sung in a dark auditorium.