David Klassy:
CLASS OF 1993
Great Mills High SchoolClass of 1993
Great mills, MD
Midway Elementary SchoolClass of 1999
Kingston, TN
Midtown Elementary SchoolClass of 1999
Harriman, TN
Spring Ridge Middle SchoolClass of 1989
Lexington park, MD
Carver Elementary SchoolClass of 1986
Lexington park, MD
David's Story
I live in Kalispell, MT since 2010, but I am disability early retired since 2020, from 19 years of mostly music public school education along with numerous other subjects, 26 years of bi-vocational church music positions, 10 years of retail customer service, 6 years of various clerical temporary jobs, and dozens of fine students taught in my home studio. What drew me here was a combination of rural K-8 small schools in which to teach vocal music only, full-time, but with immediate health benefits, which I would not have had, if we remained where we were, despite how happy I was there. I remain happily married to, since the 2013 5th anniversary of our 2008 first date, Roger Blair, who is also from South Dakota, and without whom I could not have fared as well. These days my now adult children all live in the same town as us if not in the house with us. We are electing to send Sarah, who was born in Mitchell, SD, in late 2004, 6 weeks premature and with Down syndrome, back to South Dakota to live with her mom this summer and for the following school year periods just after she graduates high school here at the end of May 2024. Hannah, my middle daughter born 54 weeks before Sarah also in Mitchell, has college continuation plans past Flathead Valley Community College also here, which may take her Chemical Engineering studies somewhere East for degree completion. Our oldest who was born in early 1998 now goes by Kadence and has sampled many different education and career paths, some even taking her to Alaska and back, twice! It looks like as long as Roger, 28 years my senior, is happy working as our local symphony's stage manager, and custodian for two small downtown churches, all VERY part-time, we are not likely to leave the area, as much as I often would like to, having no extended family and lacking in multiple health care options around here. But even before I had full-time equivalent tenure in multiple school districts, we did finally buy a house (my first one) here in 2016, just after the kids came to live with us for the longer parts of the year. However, because of how high the housing costs already were and increased and remain, I don't foresee my children settling here, so I hope when we move, the house is still worth twice as much as what similar houses are in places back East where I would like to live. So, how did I end up here? Well, let's go back to 1993 and summarize...
I graduated from Great Mills High School in Maryland 11th in the class with a Certificate of Merit and as a member of the National Honor Society. During high school I was active in the choral program, Students Helping Other People (peer counseling), Drama, SADD, Yearbook, Library assistant, French teacher assistant, French Club, and of course musicals, just to name a few. During most of those mid-teen years, I worked at The Tackle Box there in Lexington Park quite a bit storing away a lot of money for vehicles and traveling, but mostly for college. I was blessed to pick up a LOT of volunteer church music, education, and leadership experience in those same years and earlier, but even more so as a supply church musician elsewhere in the community and later as a wedding organist. Much of this continued into the first few years of summer and winter breaks from college when I would return to Maryland from college but later choosing to fully live near the college, I continued in most of this, but all paid, in that region.
Four years later I earned my Bachelor of Music in Music Education (Choral/Vocal/General and Instrumental) from Carson-Newman College in Jefferson City, TN. I worked part-time in church music, mostly at Callahan Road Baptist Church in Northwest Knoxville, and in temporary clerical and customer service jobs, namely for the Catholic Diocese office, Healthsource, Softkey, U.S.Cellular, Pilot Oil, Coca-Cola, Healthsource, and Talbots Telemarketing. Some of my financial aid came in the form of maxed and most enjoyed work-study opportunities in the college library and as a teaching assistant to multiple professors in the music department while accompanying instrumentals, vocalists, and ensembles, and continuing to teach beginner piano lessons as I had done summers in Maryland. I continued involvement in handbells whenever I had the opportunity and of course sang in the auditioned college A Cappella Choir, along with the Knoxville Choral Society. After only studying a little bit of flute in 5th grade, I supplemented my various instrumental methods studies and played mallet and auxiliary percussion in the college band, not realizing until years later how smart a choice I made with that.
Just talking in terms of further education, I made my failed first attempt at graduate education by nearly starting a Master of Divinity in Church Music at Southwest Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, TX in 2000 after the grueling efforts just to be admitted. Realizing I am still skipping many life events, ten years later, upon my return to Northwestern Montana to teach there again, I found out that all education-related post-graduate studies counted towards a lane change which meant immediate higher pay on the teacher salary schedules. By then, I had started in 2004 earning some credits for South Dakota teaching certification, some for updated music pedagogy, some for my 7-12 Technology Education certification earned in South Dakota, and some because wanted to learn new classroom management tricks and to better help my dyslexic students. Starting teaching the second time in Montana in 2010, I found out that at least in the districts where I worked, every credit earned after my B. Mus. counts for lane advancement in the teacher salary schedule. During the next 10 years, while continuing to teach equivalent to full-time, I earned up to a total of 81 2/3 (some of those are quarter credits) semester hour credits past my B. Mus. but still no Master's degree. Many of those courses were for a dropped 25% completed effort in 2018 towards a Master of Arts in Counseling for K-12 School Emphasis through the University of North Dakota, and a dropped, due to disability, 20% complete effort in 2020 towards a Master of Education in Curriculum and Instruction, Elementary Specialization through Montana State University, Billings. But I got ahead of myself!
Backing up to 1997, after college, I taught K-8 General/Choral music in Roane County, Tennessee, which involved nearly 900 students in 3 schools, though at the time, 2 schools were in one building. During that time I found more fulfilling church music ministry work at Liberty Baptist Church in Wartburg, TN. After 2 overworked years of teaching, I spent about a year working various clerical jobs in the Tulsa, OK, and Fort Worth, TX area, including what was then called The Money Store under First Union Bank in Midtown Tulsa and Baker Oil Tools under the Baker Hughes Corporation in Broken Arrow, OK. I was then hired as the weeknight/overnight Shipment Management Coordinator for Ryder Integrated Logistics in the Shipment Planning Execution department of the Transportation Management Center North of Fort Worth after several months of working the day shift near Alliance Airport. After working that shift for nearly 2 years, I was moved to the day shift and optimization. During the total of 3 years away from teaching, I did remain active in church music as a volunteer, more often in short-term supply positions, and on staff at Walnut Creek Baptist Church in Reno, TX, and at the Protestant Fellowship Chapel in the St. Francis Retirement Community near Crowley, TX.
After too long in the heat of Texas, I returned to teaching, but this time in a 5-12 Band and 9-12 Choral teaching position in Plains, Montana, about 80 miles Southwest of where I live now in Northwest Montana. Realizing the community was a bit too small for our comfort and it was too far from most of the family, we attempted to settle in Spencer, then Mitchell, and then Emery, SD, at least all in the state where I had wanted to settle. During this time frame, I picked up some summer temp work manually stacking boxes of boxes to catch up from productivity delays at Graphic Packaging and I had a one-time fun opportunity dealing (non-monetary) blackjack at a company picnic for Toshiba, both in Mitchell. I maintained education work first enjoying 2 years of a long daily commute teaching K-8 General Music and Beginning Band and assisting with high school music all at 4 different locations of the Bon Homme School District out of Tyndall, SD. I then taught one year of K-12 Vocal and Band music at Mt. Vernon School in nearby Mt. Vernon, SD. Thinking about picking up more non-teaching work for the future, I sought temporary clerical work and was placed in multiple locations in Sioux Falls, SD, including the Wells Fargo Bank Corporation.
With the separation and eventual divorce, it seemed most logical to move back to Mitchell, the larger town of the region where I already knew many helpful people, and had some paid sidelines going already. After some volunteer church music work, I was the organist and later the music director at the Congregational United Church of Christ in Mitchell. I had been doing the Spencer driving route and later a neighborhood walking route in Mitchell for the local 6-day newspaper before taking on a more profitable single-copy delivery route all over Mitchell. I got sweet-talked into first accompanying the restart of the Mitchell Area Community Theater's opening musical "Anything Goes", which led to "Godspell", "Meet Me in St. Louis", on stage as the nice psychiatrist role in the play "Miracle on 34th Street" and as Marcellus Washburn singing and dancing the Shipoopi in "The Music Man". I also got sweet-talked into directing and getting handsomely paid once I finally gave in to become the artistic director of the Palace City Women's Chorus, formerly the Mitchell Sweet Adelines. Suddenly, in addition to the wonderful UCC tha...Expand for more
t I miss, I soon also had dozens of helpful people during these times I was in need.
But the full-time work in Mitchell in my last year of not teaching before early retirement ended up being at Walmart, starting as a star employee in electronics through the holiday season in a recession year. Eventually settling into the best-paying one-hour digital photo, which was still not enough pay to not work the side jobs that meant I couldn't work some evenings and Sunday mornings ever. The assistant manager who transferred me, and then soon after resigned, promised me there would be no issues with my requested restricted availability, until after my high marks from my department manager were not enough to qualify me for the maximum raise expected, showing that I had been lied to, I guess. So, I either needed to stay at Walmart against my principles, or return to teaching, and the latter likely meant I'd need to leave the area for what I wanted in full-time work.
After nearly signing a contract for what would have been a disaster job distant from Mitchell, but closer to where I ended up, I moved to Kadoka, SD, near Badlands National Park, where I taught K-8 music (band and choir) and later K-8 computers at the 3 satellite locations of Long Valley, Midland, and Interior of the Kadoka Area School District. I lived a lonely but very sweet life during the first year and summer unknowingly preparing for some better career, ministry, and self-esteem years ahead, being nurtured and cared for by so many in the area, in community men's group Bible studies, church music and Bible camp counselor volunteering, camp counselor volunteering, opportunities for with low-cost continuing education, and compensated curriculum mapping development time. I slowly started living and working part-time in Rapid City when I became the part-time music director at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church on the West side of Rapid City near the end of 2008. I soon after started volunteering in the library and in reception of the Black Hills Center for Equality for which Roger was the Board Chair at the time. That sort of volunteer work continued into life here in Kalispell where we were on the board equivalent, restarted the non-profit process and documents, and opened a short-lived small drop-in community center downtown where I also published the monthly newsletters. I maintained a modest home in Kadoka while moving Roger and I together into a rental house in North Rapid City, near Central High, but even 2 roundtrips a week from Rapid City to Kadoka and back had become too much and I wanted to become more involved in things in what had always felt to me like my hometown, even now.
I reluctantly resigned my Kadoka Area position for a very difficult position 80 miles closer to Rapid City where I once again, and never again, would teach all K-12 music, choir, and band alone at New Underwood near Rapid City. To no surprise, bad politics in the high school suffocated me there just like at Mt. Vernon and so I left there with no replacement position and wore myself out trying to find anything, especially without high school music teaching and without having to move. Realizing a move was imminent, I actually first looked at Montana, where I had lived before, where the weather was cooler and the mountains were higher, and I first saw the position I eventually interviewed for, 7 weeks after I applied for it, and I earned over 4 other candidates, 3 being local or so I was told. After so much effort put into applying for and even interviewing unsuccessfully for dozens of jobs in the Rapid City area, I finally gave in and found temp work quickly in the Rapid City Regional Hospital system in the medical records department, which was not really where I wanted to end up, but the pay was fine and it was a common starting point for clerical to administrative work advancement in the hospital system there. I would have been 3 to 9 months without affordable health care and probably would have made it fine, but it was eventually for that concern that we left and moved here for me to continue teaching and have still spendy health care, but at least something.
Moving to Kalispell meant I would have to give up my involvement in the Dakota Choral Union as the community choir to sing at least a major work each year with the Black Hills Symphony, a major sacred work each spring, a near Christmas night service in the Cathedral and an additional thematic fall concert. I did get involved in the Valley Voices Community Choir here starting the in Spring of 2011, rising to act as the substitute artistic director for the Fall 2013 semester, followed by president through 2014, and Bass section leader for the year prior to the semester directing and 2 years after being president. Beginning in the Spring of 2012 I began recording my voice and often playing the line on the piano simultaneously for the men's home-practice CDs, something I can still minimally do in retirement, having not sung in Valley Voices since 2018. I also auditioned and sang 2nd Tenor, sometimes other parts down to Bass, in the Glacier Chorale, and often was the co-accompanist from Fall 2011 to Spring 2016. I would also have to give up singing in the Shrine of Democracy Chorus for the men's barbershop singers, which along with DCU, connected me on a familiar level, with quite a few influential folks, some I'd wanted to know for decades. I will say that the Kalispell men's barbershop did contact me, but their rehearsals were on a night that didn't work for me. Along with that, the now defunct, Kalispell Sweet Adelines asked me to direct them, but for no pay, and I couldn't commit.
Over time here in Kalispell, I worked all 10 years for one of those 2 initial schools, Marion, the most distant from home at 20 miles, and in my final year there, I was finally a full-time teacher adding in computers/keyboarding and some of the PE classes to my K-4 general, 5-8 choral, and 5-8 band responsibilities while in that last grad school attempt. I remained at the other initial part-time school, Smith Valley, the largest of all of them but the closest at 6 miles from home, for only 2 years seeing their expectations were too much for one person and so many students. I went on to the next largest and the next closer at 10 miles from home, Kila School, and again faced unusual expectations for the pay and time there for the student population and facilities available. After this, Marion needed me an additional day of the week as the school counselor, so I found a school only needing me 2 days a week, at Olney-Bissell. They were the nearest thing to heaven to me, as it was my smallest, and second-most distant at 16 miles, and I worked 4 happy years there. As Marion's student population and needs grew again, I needed to find a school needing me just two afternoons a week, so I attempted to teach K-6 music at Creston on the other side of Kalispell, but commuting between school midday and coming into the school there to set up music in the same gymnasium during noisy lunch periods spelled failure for me the whole year.
Along with the schools, just like everywhere else, I sought involvement in compensated church music ministry, but settled for volunteer work for most of the first 3 years here. The volunteer work included having a church group rehearse weekly and play about once each 6 weeks during the Eucharist on my then two octaves of handbells. Churches not of my membership started involving me monthly rotational compensated organist, even after moving my membership in my 4th year to a church where musicians were paid. In 2016, I was hired to direct the choir at Bethlehem Lutheran Church ELCA, where I was a member, then 3 blocks from home, now only 1 1/2 blocks. Unfortunately, even before being hired as the only candidate, other life stressors pushed out the diagnoses for my lifelong depression and anxiety disorders, PTSD, and already ADHD, and eventually Autism for a disastrous need of counseling and other unexpected expenses, and my requests for help were totally misinterpreted. Well, they found their way to get rid of me. When the long-time part-time music director retired, they decided his replacement needed to be full-time and be able to direct and accompany the choir, which I have years of experience doing. However, they actually posted a dollar amount for it and a doctorate was hired now followed by someone retired from elsewhere in the nation. Not long after that silent dismissal, I took a position at another church in a nearby town which went well until the very new building was too late discovered by me not to be air-conditioned and I was nearly suffocating if I dressed appropriately. I was never allowed to find out who but I was pretty much ridiculed, after being told by all involved musicians to let them know anytime such a thing happens to me, about my attire and told I'm not allowed to communicate such complaints about me to church members. During my time there I got my Autism diagnosis so I made them fire me and then received a very nice severance pay. The two monthly rotational part-time organist churches resumed and went on and off over a 7-year period together until they uniquely decided they shouldn't have someone disabled playing for them.
As usual, I also worked in my other fields of experience to supplement our needed income. In the years I temped here, I did a variety of work for companies including J-2 Business Products, Collision Craft, Evergreen Disposal, Waterstreet, and Walmart. For 15 of the last 18 months our local Kmart store existed, I worked mostly in the front end at the Customer Service Desk but also everywhere on the floor that I was needed. Soon after that, I worked only the winter holiday season as a "Closing Expert" for Target and equally enjoyed both experiences, planning to return until COVID stopped that.
I happily stay home but like to text chat online, so please do that! Visits are OK too!
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