Remembrance: 
Joyce Stuermer’s lasting influence in my life; introducing a Facebook page commemorating her life and legacy 
by Bill Jones

(You can find additional photos posted to Joyce Stuermer Facebook page.)

This is the first post to a Facebook page I’ve created in collaboration with Del Sutton – going live today, Sept. 9, 2019 – to pay tribute to the life and legacy of Joyce Stuermer. Joyce, who passed away in October 2012, shortly after her 82nd birthday, was a consummate musician and choral music director. To me, most of all, she was a friend, an example, and a major influence in my life. I’m hoping this page will draw memories posted by many other students and friends of hers. They are legion.

I first knew Joyce – “Miss Stuermer” to me back then – when I was a sophomore at Oak Park High School (Kansas City, MO). She was the choral music director at Oak Park, which was then in only its second year of existence. I think it was the spring semester, which would make it January 1967, that I took the Boys Glee Club class.

There were only about 10 (maybe fewer, not sure) of us in that class, so we usually stood around the piano as Joyce played and directed. I was really a fish out of water in more ways than one. For example, I was the only one in that class who had any experience reading music. I had taken piano since 3rd grade and had sung in choirs at church since I was little. At this point, I was in my fourth year singing bass in Youth Choir at church, and we sang in the Sunday evening service EVERY week. So I was miles ahead of the other guys in this class in terms of musical knowledge and experience.

I want to share four specific examples of Joyce’s influence in my life.

1. I didn’t just GO to church – I LIVED church! My best friends were at church, my life revolved around Youth Choir and the youth group there. Unfortunately, I had a holier-than-thou attitude toward anyone away from church, and it showed! (I’ve never been able to hide the way I feel.) Joyce spotted this in my attitude toward the other guys in the Boys Glee Club. I don’t remember any specific examples of how I expressed this attitude, but I do remember that it was one of condescension . . . looking down on some of their conversation as, ahem, ‘unholy.’

One day, “Miss Stuermer” asked me into her office for a private talk. Joyce was a faithful, devoted Christian, an active member of her choir at church. When I sat down at her desk, she very directly confronted my holier-than-thou attitude. She told me that she understood where I was coming from, but that my attitude wasn’t Christian at all, and – if my purpose was to persuade others of the truth of my faith – my condescending attitude was defeating my purpose. It was turning off those guys.

Joyce Stuermer was about much more than music. She was about people. She cared enough about this arrogant sophomore to tell me I needed to change my attitude if I wanted to truly reflect the Christ I purported to worship.

2. From the time I entered Boys Glee Club, Joyce spotted my musical know-how and ability. She began lobbying me to try out for A Cappella Choir, the premier choral group at Oak Park. It was a huge choir – I don’t remember exactly, but probably 80 to 100 voices in it, or at least it seemed that way to me. And you had to audition before the entire choir!

Well, I was as shy as could be – scared of my own shadow. I still have my copy of the 1964 Rotag – the yearbook published by Northgate Junior High School when I was in 7th grade – in which the “7th Grade Gallop Polls” (yes, Gallop, not Gallup) listed me tied with Craig Jacobs for “Shyest” in the Boys poll.

At church, where everyone knew me, and I was a leader in the Youth Choir, I was pretty confident when it came to my musical ability. But this was Oak Park’s A Cappella Choir, where almost nobody knew me and they were ALL supremely talented musically. They were the cream of the musical crop at Oak Park, and I was scared to death of singing by my lonesome in front of that large group of singers.

So I resisted, kept telling Joyce no. In my Junior year, I was no longer taking a class under her, but every time she saw me in the hallway, she would stop me. “Bill Jones, I want you in A Cappella Choir!” I mean, she was relentless!

In retrospect, the audition was just a formality – Joyce knew my ability and knew I belonged in A Cappella Choir – but it was also a reality, a scary reality to me.

Finally, near the end of my Junior year, after Joyce had once again stopped me in the hallway and practically demanded that I come and audition, I gave in. I couldn’t fight her any longer. I auditioned and was accepted into A Cappella Choir for my Senior year, and it turned out to be one of the best experiences of my life.

3. In the spring semester, Oak Park always performed a musical, and A Cappella Choir provided the vast majority of the cast and chorus. In 1969, my Senior year, the musical was The Music Man. (See photo here and more on Joyce’s Facebook page.) Del Sutton – with whom I’ve reconnected in recent years and who I had known since 6th grade (we sang together in the chorus at Northgate Jr. High from 7th-9th grades) – was cast in the lead role of Harold Hill.

If memory serves, all of us in A Cappella Choir had to audition. Besides singing in the chorus – as all members of A Cappella (other than those in the main cast) did – I landed a one-line solo in “Wells Fargo Wagon.” I remember it as if it were yesterday: “And once I got some grapefruit from Tampa!”

Oak Park didn’t do anything small. Under the direction of Joyce Stuermer and Leota Clendenen, the drama teacher, Oak Park prepared and performed productions that were professional in every sense of the word except one – we didn’t get paid (duh)! Now somebody (Del Sutton, I’m looking at you) can correct me if I’m wrong, but my memory tells me that we rehearsed in full dress AND full make-up every night for a month before our first performance. (Over the years, I have run across a mimeographed Music Man rehearsal schedule from March 1969; right now, it’s apparently buried in a file folder somewhere. When I find it, I’ll post a picture of it.) In addition to the nightly rehearsals with full cast and crew, A Cappella Choir went into the theater during our daily class time and rehearsed, blocked scenes, etc.

As I mentioned before, with Joyce Stuermer and Leota Clendenen, everything had to be professionally perfect – and I do mean EVERYTHING, right down to my little one-line solo. I’m sure Joyce had already told me how she wanted me to do the solo, probably several times, but I still wasn’t doing it even close to her satisfaction. She wanted me to come through the crowd, right in the middle of the barbershop quartet, push them aside as I came through and take the heads of two girls standing there and push them down – like a couple of grapefruit – as I sang “And once I got some grapefruit from Tampa!”

But instead of boisterously pushing my way through the crowd, I came through timidly, typical of shy Bill Jones.

One evening, Joyce had finally had enough of this act! She called the scene to a halt (maybe she yelled “Cut” like a movie director – I don’t remember) and announced to the cast and crew, and God and anyone else within shouting distance, “We’re going to call this ‘Bill Jones night’!” She then proceeded to demonstrate exactly what she wanted me to do and told me that she expected me to do it just like that. AND I was going to keep doing it until I did it just like that, with the same determination and energy that she had just demonstrated. In other words, the entire production was halted until Bill Jones got his act together – and his one-line solo to her satisfaction. We would keep doing my solo over and over until I got it right. No pressure, right? Only the entire rehearsal that night was now on my shoulders.

Well, the rest of the evening is a blur in my memory. I don’t remember whether I got it right the next time or I had to do it fifty times. I don’t remember whether she felt it necessary to do another demonstration for me. All I know is that I apparently finally got it right so we could continue rehearsal and go home that night.

I’m sure I was a little embarrassed, but by this time I knew Joyce Stuermer didn’t do anything to embarrass anyone – everything she did as a teacher was for the benefit of her students, and that evening was another expression of her concern for this student in whom she saw potential but whom she knew was falling far short of what he could be. And, if necessary, she was going to drag him into living into his potential.

I really don’t remember feeling embarrassed, but I do remember feeling motivated. A couple of days later, during our A Cappella rehearsal in the theater, we rehearsed Wells Fargo Wagon. When it came time for my solo, I pushed my way through the barbershop quartet so forcefully that I knocked Jerry Bell clean off the stage and onto the floor of the theater, six feet below. I don’t think Jerry Bell ever spoke to me again (and I don’t blame him – sorry, Jerry, if you’re reading this, I think I caught you off-guard, because there’s no way anyone ever expected me to push that hard), but Joyce Stuermer was absolutely delighted that her message to me had finally gotten through, loud and clear.

We did six performances of The Music Man. Somewhere I have an index card (another item that is buried in a file folder somewhere in my study; I’ll share a picture of it when I locate it) on which I wrote, either before or after the first performance, the parts of my performance – in the solo; in my entrance on stage with my “wife” to sign up our son for an instrument from Professor Hill; and in the chorus throughout the performance – where I knew I could do better. I kept the index card with me during the show and would glance at it whenever I was offstage, to remind myself of my goals to achieve a performance with which I could be satisfied. BECAUSE Joyce Stuermer and Leota Clendenen had driven home the point (and Joyce, especially, with “Bill Jones Night”) that EVERY part, no matter how small it might seem, was important to the success of the production.

Finally, in our sixth and final performance, I felt I had achieved all of the elements on that index card. Oh yes, did I mention that Joyce had motivated me with “Bill Jones Night”?

The following fall, I entered Oklahoma Baptist University as a freshman. I still struggled with my confidence. But I remember often walking across campus and thinking to myself, “Joyce Stuermer believes in me. I can do anything I set my mind to – it’s up to me.” She was still motivating and encouraging me, and has continued to do so throughout my life.

4. I returned to Oak Park just before Christmas 1970, as a college sophomore, to sing Messiah (at least the Hallelujah Chorus – I don’t recall whether we sang other portions) with the A Cappella Choir and alumni. Now my memory is awfully shaky on this point, but I think Joyce had left Oak Park by this time but came back and directed us in Messiah. I could be wrong about that, but one thing I know is that she was there that night.

This came at an extremely pivotal time in my life. The previous month, I had come to a spiritual fork in the road, and I was now reevaluating my faith. In fact, at this point I no longer believed in God but was searching, and my holier-than-thou attitudes – which had led to my meeting with Joyce in her office almost 4 years earlier – were gone. After the performance that evening, and most people had filed out, Joyce and I sat down on the steps of one of the stairways and just talked for a little while. I shared with her about what I was going through spiritually – I was in a confused and discouraged state – and she was very understanding and encouraging. And we wound up laughing as she shared some of her experiences with college students (I think she was teaching at Ottawa U. in Kansas by this time). She would, in one sense, always be my teacher, because I’ve never stopped learning the lessons she taught me at Oak Park, but now we were also friends.

My parents moved from Kansas City to Texas in 1974, and I never returned to live there, so my time in Kansas City has been infrequent and brief over the past 45 years. Joyce and I kept in touch with occasional letters through the years.

In 1999, when I was in KC for our Oak Park 1969 graduating class’s 30th anniversary celebration, I dropped by Joyce’s apartment and had a great visit with her. Then, in the summer of 2010, my wife and I went to Kansas City for the reunion of my old church youth group, so I called Joyce and asked if we could take her to dinner. (See photo here and more on Joyce’s Facebook page.) We had a wonderful visit with her, and I was so pleased that my wife (I married Joanna, whom I met in college, in 1976) could finally meet this woman who had been so influential and inspirational in my life. Joyce was so pleased to know of the many leadership roles I’ve had through the years – I have to figure that I would not have been so well prepared for those roles, or even been in position to take them, if not for the influence of Joyce Stuermer in my life. We had no idea when we saw her in 2010 that she would be gone so quickly, barely over 2 years later. I’m so thankful that I was able to have those last two visits with her and share with her just how much she has meant to me. I can’t imagine how many hundreds (thousands?) of others can echo these sentiments, how many lives she touched.

And yes, I had kept up my faith search in the 1970s and ultimately found my way back to God with a much more mature faith than I had back in 1967 when I was in Boys Glee Club.

And I will forever be grateful to God for letting me know Joyce Stuermer and for her profound touch on my life.