FORT DAVIS — Fort Davis ISD students are being reintroduced to music after nearly 10 years without, thanks to Don Witte, a local music enthusiast who passed away in 2022 and donated a portion of his estate towards reviving the district’s lapsed music program, a victim of 2014 budget cuts.
“I practically broke into tears when he said he wanted to do that,” Superintendent Graydon Hicks said. “I expressed to him as often as I could how much I appreciated his generosity in helping our kids because we have a lot of kids that love music.”
Witte, who passed away at age 85, began playing the violin at age four and went on to perform with the Midland Odessa Symphony Orchestra in junior high and high school. He was “a Renaissance type of fellow,” Hicks said, knowledgeable of not only music but engineering, astronomy and more.
One of Witte’s friends and executor of his estate, Kathryn Busby, said he loved all types of music, particularly string music from the Romantic period, and put his skills as an inventor and machinist to use creating new instruments out of rocks and pipes. She said Witte was both committed to the area in which he lived and a true believer in the power of music.
When a family with several children moved near him in the Crow’s Nest neighborhood, he insisted they needed piano lessons. Busby said Witte understood from his own experience the potential impacts exposure to music can have on children at an early age, and his greatest wish was to bring back that opportunity for Fort Davis’ youth.
“There might be some kid in a school program that just never played an instrument, never became familiar with music and missed out on something that could have been vital in their life,” Busby said. “I think he just didn’t want that to happen.”
Thanks to Witte, the district reintroduced its music program — repairing idle instruments and purchasing new ones, hiring a new music coordinator and scheduling daily class periods dedicated to music instruction — last year.
This month elementary students pre-K through fifth grade will perform educational songs in a choir concert taking place at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 14, on the Jeff Davis County Courthouse steps. The district’s first-ever musical, the pioneer drama “Hillbilly Hayride” by Tim Kelly, featuring middle school students, will be performed at 6:30 p.m. Monday, May 20, in the high school auditorium.
District Music Coordinator Mary Lynn McMichael and her husband, Chuck McMichael, a percussionist working for the district as an aide, moved to the area to help relaunch Fort Davis ISD’s music program. “We were actually out in this area when we found out that Fort Davis had not had a music program for nearly 10 years,” Mary Lynn said. “You’re talking about nearly an entire generation of children that had come through school with no music.”
Mary Lynn said she and Chuck learned from raising their own children how transformative music as an educational tool can be, and they are already seeing growth in Fort Davis ISD students thanks to new music programs. Elementary students are learning the “Schoolhouse Rock” song “Three Is a Magic Number,” which is improving their multiplication tables, she said.
While establishing a formal marching band is too expensive for the district, Hicks said, the McMichaels have formed a high school drumline that performs at home football games. Last year, the drumline also included some junior high students and was an all-girl outfit. Mary Lynn said the district may consider adding a strings, or orchestra, program at some point, but for now, there is plenty to engage students in.
“That’s the exciting part, is that they’ve never had music and they all have so many different interests,” Mary Lynn said. “That’s why we’re trying to do band and choir and musical theater. All of these different things, at one time, are very challenging.”
Hicks said he has heard nothing but positive feedback from the community about reinstating the program and McMichael’s leadership. “Chuck and Mary do absolute wonders, their programs have just been phenomenal,” Hicks said.
Hicks said Witte donated $100,000 in cash to reestablish the music program before he died, and as assets are sold from his estate, the funds — an exact amount has yet to be determined — will be funneled into the Fort Davis Education Foundation managed by the Permian Basin Area Foundation. After that, the district will assume responsibility for the upkeep of the program, which Hicks said won’t be a problem due to a new revenue stream provided by its partnerships with early childhood education programs in which both entities financially benefit from dual enrollment.
“He single-handedly helped us reestablish the program,” Hicks said. He said he will continue to work with Busby to iron out the details of Witte’s estate. Busby said she wished Witte lived to see the music program’s advancements, but it is “wonderful” to hear how the kids are taking to it.
She said she herself is one of Witte’s success stories. They first met when she moved to Fort Davis, and when Witte found out she used to play the cello, he lent her his cello on the condition she brush up and join a quartet he performed in. When she moved to Arizona they kept in touch, and to this day she continues to play the cello he lent her.
“I was one of those young people that would have been distanced from music if he hadn’t intervened, and I am really grateful for that, especially as the years have gone by, and I’m still actively playing the cello and that’s been an important part of my life,” Busby said. “In a way, I’m one of the kids he wanted to help.”