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Wenning retiring from traditional teaching role, but teaching career to continue on

John Wenning is retiring from Crestview Middle School after 33 years of instructing school music classes and choirs there and elsewhere. However, this is not the end of his teaching career; he will continue on as a choir consultant, vocal clinician and show choir judge.
John Wenning is retiring from Crestview Middle School after 33 years of instructing school music classes and choirs there and elsewhere. However, this is not the end of his teaching career; he will continue on as a choir consultant, vocal clinician and show choir judge. Photo by Joni Knott.

Originally published May 28, 2015.

John Wenning is retiring from traditional educational roles this fall after 33 years of instructing high school and middle school music classes and choirs.

However, this is not the end of his teaching career; he will continue on as a choir consultant, vocal clinician and show choir judge after his departure from Crestview Middle School.

While music has been his life’s work, it wasn’t on his agenda as a youngster. He thought that he wanted to pursue business or court stenography.

“As a child, I never saw my life taking this direction,” Wenning says. “What changed my mind was my mom. She told me that they have to learn how to type in shorthand. That meant learning a whole new keyboard, and I didn’t want to do that.”

His mother encouraged him to consider music and, having taken piano classes since the eighth grade, Wenning found music performance to be an appropriate field to study.

“My mother was musical, and I was the only one in my family of 13 children to pursue music,” says Wenning. “She was thrilled.”

Wenning’s shift from music performance to music education occurred after an unfolding of events before his junior year at Ball State University.

“I got discouraged because I didn’t know what I was going to do with it (a music performance degree),” Wenning says. “Then, at the end of my sophomore year, I had started working at a Bonanza restaurant, and I was asked to be an assistant manager.”

In response to acquiring the new management position, Wenning dropped out of the music performance program at Ball State University and began working at the restaurant full time.

“I thought it would be cool to finally really start making money like some of my friends from high school,” he says. “I was in it for three weeks and I did not like it at all.”

Two weeks before classes began again at Ball State University, Wenning found himself working to get re-enrolled.

“I couldn’t get back in a dorm, and I had lost all of my financial aid,” says Wenning. “But I worked as a counselor with a campus ministry that I had previously been involved with, and I was able to live in the ministry’s apartment building.”

Wenning also had to sell his car in order to help pay for that semester’s tuition.

“I barely made enough to cover my tuition that semester,” he says. “Then, the next semester all of my scholarships came back, and I was awarded a grant that was better than the one I had before.”

However, Wenning’s problems were not all completely solved with his re-admittance to Ball State University.

“I still had no idea what I wanted to study,” Wenning says. “I went back to the dean of music and told him that I didn’t know what to do. He said, ‘You’re going to be a teacher.’”

Wenning wasn’t sure that the dean was correct in his assessment. But, after some convincing, he enrolled in the courses that the dean encouraged him to take.

“In those first classes, I knew that music education was for me,” Wenning says. “I thought I loved the program but, when I got into a classroom, I was hooked. I knew that was what I was supposed to do.”

Wenning went on to student teach at Muncie Northside High School.

At the conclusion of his time student teaching, his supervising teacher was given the opportunity to move into a supervision and management role within the corporation.

“So there was an opening at the school,” Wenning says. “I applied for it, hoped so badly that I would get it and I did. I taught there for three years.”
During his third year teaching at Muncie Northside High School, there was a discussion about closing the school and turning it into a middle school.

“Because I didn’t have very much seniority, they weren’t sure where, or if, I was going to be transferred,” he says. “So, I started looking, and I applied at several different schools.”

Wenning says that he got two or three offers from different schools, but he never felt right about them.

When he was interviewing for a position at Norwell High School, he ran into a university friend from Huntington County who informed him of an opening at Huntington North High School.

“I didn’t even know where Huntington was,” Wenning says. “She said, ‘Well, it’s open and it’s a really big school, but I think that you would be great there.’”
She didn’t care to work for her alma mater; and, while Wenning still really wanted the position at Norwell High School, he inquired about the opening at Huntington North High School.

“Shortly after I got my interview at Huntington North, she actually got the job at Norwell,” he said. “I remember walking into Huntington North for my first interview and knowing that that was where I was supposed to teach.”

Wenning taught music classes and choirs for 28 years at Huntington North High School and created a reputation for his show choir’s performance skill and vocals.

“When I first started out teaching,” Wenning says, “show choir, although it was a very interesting genre, wasn’t something that I knew very much about or had a lot of skill in.”

The more he began to learn about the theatrical choir genre, the more exciting it became to him.

“I had to learn from watching, doing, getting involved and going to camps,” says Wenning. “I had a lot of help.”

The first show choir that Wenning worked with was affiliated with Muncie Northside High School.

“When I was at Muncie Northside High School, the big show choir competition at the time was at Bishop Luers and they only accepted 16 teams in the whole Midwest,” Wenning says. “The third year that I was at Muncie North, my group got in.”

Wenning says that they didn’t place very well that year, but that it was a great first experience with show choir competitions.

When he came to Huntington North High School, the school didn’t have a show choir. There had been traditional show choirs in the past, but the program had moved away from dancing and transitioned into a swing/jazz choir.

“They just did the singing,” Wenning says. “Which was great, I can’t say anything negative about that.”

But Wenning decided to develop the group of 16 students into a more traditional show choir.

“I understood what show choir was, and I knew it was fun,” he says. “I knew that it would be popular, and that the kids would really like it.”

That first year at Huntington North High School, Wenning took his new show choir to one competition in the spring.

“The students did rather well,” says Wenning. “I knew that the program was going to go somewhere.”

Wenning was right in his assumption that Huntington North students would enjoy a traditional show choir. After that first year, the number of participants in the group rose to 28 its second year, 32 its third and 40 the year after.

“Each year, it got bigger and bigger and better and better,” Wenning says. “We won multiple awards and were well known for our singing.”

“The second year that I was at Huntington North, there was a national competition in Chicago that we had to audition to get in to,” says Wenning. “We were invited, and we were invited back seven years in a row after that.”

The show choir at Huntington North High School has won many grand champion titles, awards for vocals and awards for choreography.

“We went to a second competition at Kings Island in 1986, and we won the title Grand Champion there,” Wenning says. “Every year after that, we won a grand champion in some competition.”

Starting in 1988, Wenning and his show choir students began winning multiple grand champion titles and other awards per season.

“It was pretty cool,” he says. “I think out of the 28 years that I was at Huntington North High School, we won over 75 to 80 grand champion titles. I would say that we probably won the best singing group title about 50 times. We won the choreography award about 25 times.”

Two years ago, knowing that the person teaching at Crestview Middle School was retiring, Wenning decided to make a career move and apply for the new opening.

“I had achieved all of the success that I wanted to achieve with my students at the high school level,” Wenning says. “I could have repeated a lot of things, and I have repeated a lot of successes, but it was really time consuming and I just wanted to take a break from that.”

Upon entering Crestview Middle School, Wenning founded another show choir program.

“There didn’t used to be a show choir here at Crestview,” he says. “I developed that because I felt like there was a need for it.”

Wenning says he believes that the show choir experience causes transformations in students and that it helps them to grow their self-esteem and their performance skills.

“I just felt like it was an important thing for them to be a part of, and I wanted to carry that on in the middle school,” says Wenning. “When they get there, then, the high school director will also have some experience and talent to pull from.”

Last year, the first year, Cougar First Edition started with 40 participants. This year, the young program had 65 participants.

“We performed for Huntington North’s Midwest Showcase as an exhibition group for the middle school competition,” Wenning says. “I think next year is the right time for real competitions.”

Now leaving the middle school and Huntington County Community School Corporation completely, Wenning says he’s happy to have had the experience, but is looking forward to expanding his own business.

“Six years ago, I started a business on the side to help pay for my children’s college,” Wenning says. “I custom arrange choir music, primarily for show choirs. I take songs and make them original.”

Wenning started out his business with three clients. When he stopped teaching at the high school, he began accepting more clients because he was no longer competing with the other teams. He had 18 clients last year.

“It became really intense in the fall because I was arranging and teaching here at the same time,” he says.

While putting together musical arrangements and teaching, Wenning has also been traveling to conduct clinical vocal sessions with different choirs around the state, conducting private vocal lessons and judging show choir competitions.

“I love doing all that I do because people helped me get to where I got, and now I get to pass that on,” Wenning says. “I didn’t do this all on my own. I learned from many other people.”

As Wenning’s obligations began to increase in size and number, decisions had to be made.

“In the fall when it was so busy, I had to make a decision between my business and teaching,” says Wenning. “I couldn’t continue to build my business and put more effort into the show choir here.”

The decision was difficult for Wenning because he loved teaching and being with young people, but he was able to rationalize expanding his business with the recognition that he would still be fulfilling an educational role.

“Consulting with choirs, I still get to teach, be with people and make an impact,” he says, “but I don’t have to be the director, and I can leave and have multiple schools that I affect, not just one.”

Wenning wants to work with choirs globally, but he will be focusing on his own education as well.

“I’m not going to stop learning either,” Wenning says.  “This summer, I’m going to be studying with a professional voice teacher for two weeks in June. I’m going to a few other conferences this summer as well.”

Wenning says that he wouldn’t trade his teaching experiences for anything and that as he goes onward in his new career path, he will always remember the good times with his past students.

“I’ve loved working with students and seeing their lives change as a result of my interaction with them,” says Wenning. “There is a song in the Broadway musical ‘Wicked,’ that says, ‘because I knew you, I have been changed for the good.’

“I really believe that because I had the opportunity to get to know and work with these kids that they have changed me and made me a better person.”

A retirement party will be held for Wenning in the Crestview Middle School in the auditeria on June 1, from 3 to 5 p.m.