front&center: Jann Bryant

UCA Community School of Music director enjoys helping people

Jann Bryant of Conway received a degree in music education from the University of Central Arkansas, but she worked at her father's parts store, as an auditor's assistant at a bank and cashier at Hendrix College before joining the UCA Department of Music. She is now the director of the UCA Community School of Music.
Jann Bryant of Conway received a degree in music education from the University of Central Arkansas, but she worked at her father's parts store, as an auditor's assistant at a bank and cashier at Hendrix College before joining the UCA Department of Music. She is now the director of the UCA Community School of Music.

— Jann Bryant of Conway has tugged at the heartstrings of many students during her career as a music instructor.

Many of the young people she has met in her role as director of the University of Central Arkansas Community School of Music and as an adviser in the UCA music department call her "Mom."

"I have become the 'Momma' adviser," she said with a smile, explaining that she advises most of the undergraduate music students as they work toward a degree.

"I do a lot of advising. It's helpful to the students. I see about 150 to 200 students a semester."

Bryant had several careers before the road led her to UCA and the positions she now holds.

She was born in Little Rock in 1954, a daughter of the late Wilson Duvall and Billie Jennings Duvall.

"That was a very hot summer," Bryant said. "I was born at the old Baptist Hospital and delivered by 'Uncle Tom' - Dr. B.T. 'Tom' Kolb. He was not really an uncle, but a cousin to the family.

"Mother and Daddy lived in Monette, Ark., but moved to Little Rock for the last few months of her pregnancy with me. I have a sister who is 12 years older than I am, and Mother had lost a son when he was just a few years old. Then she became pregnant with me. She had three C-sections and lost the one baby. She didn't do well with having babies and should not have gotten pregnant for a third time. I guess I was a problem child from the beginning." Her sister, Gene Barry, lives in Granite, Ore.

Bryant's father owned an International Harvester dealership in Monette. The family moved to Conway when Bryant was 2. When she was 6, she attended the Irby Training School at UCA.

"It was a training school for students who were studying to become teachers," she said. "I went to the second grade there as well. We had the best time there. Then they closed it to the public, and I went onto Sallie Cone(Elementary School)."

Bryant graduated from Conway High School in 1972 and went to UCA (then known as State College of Arkansas) as a music education major in violin, voice and choir.

"I began violin lessons when I was in fifth grade," she said, noting that she began singing when she was 5. "I took (violin) from Dr. Carl Forsberg. He went into public schools with a string orchestra and performed for the students. I began playing in the UCA (then known as Arkansas State Teachers College) Orchestra when I was in seventh grade. He (Forsberg) recruited me. He said he needed string players."

Bryant said she played in every musical presented at ASTC for several years.

"Dr. Forsberg was also a member of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra," she said. "When I was a junior and senior in high school, he took me to play in the ASO. I continued to play with the ASO while I was in college, but I became extremely exhausted and dropped out. I went back for a year, but then finally quit for good."

Bryant finished her work toward a bachelor of music education degree at UCA in December 1976, but she actually graduated in 1977. She received her master of music in education degree in 1991 and is qualified to teach violin, strings and music education.

"I started graduate school but decided to start working," she said. "But I couldn't find a job related to music.So I became my dad's 'parts person' at his International Harvester dealership here in Conway. "I was his little helper, and I taught private violin lessons out of my home."

Bryant finally took a job at what was then First National Bank in Conway. "My job was going to be a teller, but I had to take bookkeeping first," she said.

She then became the auditor's assistant. "The auditor, Gerald Lackey, noticed that I always balanced," she said with a laugh. "He asked me to become his assistant. He was a great friend."

Bryant worked her way up at the bank, taking banking and economic classes, and ended up as a mortgage loan originator. "I was then asked to become the auditor (following Lackey's death.) I liked auditing and continued in that position for a while.

"But I missed music. Just singing in the stairwells just wasn't enough."

She left banking to become a cashier at Hendrix College. That job wasn't in her chosen field, either, "but it got me into an educational environment," she said with a laugh. "I was still giving private music lessons, and Hendrix even let me use their music building for my classes."

Shortly after she began working at Hendrix, Bryant had a visit from Sam Driggers, chairman of the UCA music department. "He knew me as an undergraduate," she said. "He said he had heard I was interested in coming back to school and wanted to talk to me about being a graduate assistant in the music department."

But Driggers had bigger plans for Bryant.

"Sam had always wanted to start a community school of music at UCA and had been working on it for 10 years," Bryant said. "He knew I had experience in customer service, was able to handle money and had a music degree. He asked me to help organize the research he had compiled."

Bryant did as Driggers requested. "I did a study of the situation of offering private music lessons at UCA. I wrote a request for a program, did a sample registration form and even designed an informational brochure," she said.

"In June of 1990, Sam presented the proposal to the administration. I spent five weeks on that project. I had already started graduate school and was taking a music theory review class. One week before school started in the fall, Sam said the UCA Preparatory School of Music had been approved."

Bryant said she asked Driggers whose name he wanted her to put down as director of the school. "'You, of course,' he told me. That's how it all began."

That first year, the community school had 35 students for the first semester. "By the second semester, we had about 100," she said smiling. "It's grown over the years. We've had our ups and downs, and sometimes we've had too many students at one time. The ideal number is 300 to 350 a semester. That allows everybody to be comfortable and prevents the teachers from being overworked."

The UCA Community School of Music, which is a division of the UCA Department of Music, offers private lessons in a variety of musical instruments for all ages; Suzuki violin lessons for children 4 and up; Central Arkansas Children's Choir for students in grades four through eight; guitar class for beginners for ages 10 and up; Little Mozart pre-piano for children in kindergarten and first grade;beginner piano for children in kindergarten and first grade; Kindermusik for children 6 months to 4 years; and the newest program - Music 'N' Motion, for fourth- and fifth-graders. Classes are offered in the fall, spring and summer.

The school has a faculty of 65, which includes all of the fulltime and part-time UCA music faculty; visiting instructors; and graduate music students. The fees are based on the level of the teachers' experience. Current enrollment is 280.

Goals and objectives of the UCA Community School of Music are to provide noncredit music instruction to students of all ages in applied lessons and class activities; to nurture an interest in music study; to improve and enhance the cultural level in central Arkansas; and to offer gifted underprivileged students an opportunity to pursue musical studies in the precollege years.

"We are interested in getting a special scholarship fund established for the underprivileged students," Bryant said. "We have not been able to offer scholarships the last few years due to a lack of funds to cover the cost.

"Music is vital," Bryant said.

"It helps children's brains develop. Children do better when they are exposed to any sort of musical training." Teresa Bumgarner is Bryant's assistant in the school. "She helps cover a lot of bases for the community school when I'm busy advising or out ill or on vacation. Ihad mononucleosis in the summer and fall of 2007 and had to take off eight weeks of work. She, along with the music office staff, kept the community school going and helped with advising when I was unable to work."

Bryant said she is "so grateful to our students and parents. They make our school what it is."

She married Jimmy Bryant in 1981.

"The music department at UCA brought us together," she said. He was a music major for a time, and played the tuba, but he changed his major to history. After a variety of careers, Jimmy is now archivist at UCA, just recently having received tenure.

The Bryants have two children, Zack, 27, and Melanie, 25. Both are musically inclined.

Zack is the one pursing a career in music. He holds both a bachelor's and master's degree in music from UCA, and has completed two years toward his doctor of musical arts degree in conducting. He plays trumpet and piano.

Melanie is scheduled to graduate in May 2010 with a bachelor of science degree in dietetics. She has taken piano lessons as well as voice and guitar.

Since both children are now in Conway, Bryant said they have a "family night" every Tuesday. "We started it last year because we weren't seeing each other very much," she said. "I do the cooking and Melanie usually brings a salad. She's into healthy eating; we have a lot of salads."

Bryant is a member of Chapter E, PEO. She's been active in the American String Teachers Association, Arkansas chapter. She has attended ASTA national conferences in Columbus, Ohio, and Reno, Nev., as well as the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts conference in Pittsburgh, Pa.

She is active in her church, Good Hope Christadelphian. "I've traveled in the last five or six years to Bible schools in Wisconsin, Oregon and Quebec, Canada," she said. "Bible school has been part of my life since childhood.

"I just like to help people. I appreciate all the blessings God has given me. He's so good to us. I just want to do good for others, either in music or just to help them feel better. It's such a blessing to do good for others.

"A favorite verse of mine, one my granny loved so much, too, is, 'This is the day which the Lord hath made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.' Each day is a gift and a blessing. We usually have to have bad days to appreciate the good ones, though."matter of factAge: 55 Family: Husband, Jimmy; son, Zack, 27; daughter, Melanie, 25 Occupation: Director, UCA Community School of Music; coordinator of music advising and instructor of music at UCA Hometown: Born in Little Rock, lived in Monette, Ark., until I was 2, when my family moved to Conway Hobbies: Reading, walking, running and Pilates and yoga, when time permits Most people don't know: I'm a kindergarten dropout, and I suffer from extreme performance anxiety I cannot live without: My faith in God's promises The world would be a better place if: Everyone followed The Golden Rule, and made music, of course Favorite quote: My mother always said, "If you can't say something good about a person, don't say anything at all." I've always tried to follow that, but when I don't, I usually get myself in trouble.

Favorite books: The Bible; works of fiction by such authors as Walter Farley (Black Stallion books), John Gresham, Patricia Cornwell, Tami Hoag and David Baldacci; and of course, The Centennial History of the University of Central Arkansas, which my husband wrote.

Biggest fear: Losing my husband or one of my children. I can't think of anything worse than that.

Something I've yet to accomplish: Get my doctorate. But at this point, I probably won't. I wish I had done it before I married and had children.

My worst habit: Procrastinating

River Valley Ozark, Pages 132, 133, 138, 133 on 08/23/2009

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