All the kids in the Dexter school had something in common–a remarkable music teacher.

Ruth Sellers.

Music classes were not held in the big two-story brick schoolhouse in Dexter, Iowa, where my parents and even Grandma Neal attended, which has since been torn down.  Instead we filed outside to another small building, which in a former life was an old country school building.

I can still hear Mrs. Sellers lightly blow her pitch pipe, hum the first note, and enthusiastically raise her arms for the downbeat.

I’ll never forget Mrs. Sellers’ end-of-the year extravaganzas, which included the entire school. They were held in Dexter’s historic elliptical brick Community Building, also known as the Roundhouse, built in 1916.

We students sat in the east-side bleachers, class by class.

My mimeographed program of the 1954 Music Festival began with the crowning of the May Queen by Mr. Wineinger, our tall slick-haired superintendent. Next came the Tapping Toes–Beth Sellers (daughter of the music teacher) and Linda Lenocker (who gave dancing lessons as Linda LaVonne for decades).

The a chorus of 84 children, grades kindergarten through third grade, sang “Father We Thank Thee,” “April Showers,” and “The Woman in the Shoe.” My sister Gloria was named among the second graders. Then came folk games by these same classes. One was called “Captain Jenks.” I can remember the tune and part of the march, done with arms folded and held straight out, circling your partner as the record player sang out.

The Junior High Chorus included the 13 fourth graders (my name is among these), 18 fifth graders, and 26 sixth through eighth graders. We sang “Come,” the compelling “Down in the Valley,” and the lilting “Kentucky Babe.” I don’t remember the first one, but we loved singing the other two on the schoolbus. We also got to dance the Schottische–one arm up, the other akimbo, move around the circle, then back. And the Heel Toe Polka–heel, to, cha-cha-cha.

There were just 53 students in Dexter High School that year, averaging 13 per grade. You can see why there was talk of school reorganization. The high schoolers sang Rogers and Hammerstein’s “No Other Love” and “When Day is Done.”

The highlight of the whole evening for me was the Maypole Dance–performed by girls in fourth through seventh grades. Colorful streamers of netting, like our petticoats were made from in those days, flowed from the top of a pole.

Our mothers shared in our excitement because while we were practicing the dance and winding of the Maypole, they were busy measuring and sewing our polished cotton Maypole skirts in shades of pink, grey, and white. We’d all bought our fabric from Miss Kramer’s store there in Dexter.

I can still hear the first three chords from the record player, signaling when to kneel–just so–then to lift our streamers and step back in place. The music kept us synchronized for the first movements, all stepping in one direction around the pole, then the other, lifting our streamers over the others who marched in the opposite direction.

When the music signaled, the magic would begin–the actual winding of the pole.

Half of us wove in and out one direction, half the other, around and around the pole. A lattice pattern formed as we ducked in and out until the music ended, leaving the Maypole enveloped in a colorfully woven sheath.

The actual climax of the May evening was always something uplifting. In 1954, it was a concert version of “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho.” It was like being in Heaven to sing with so many voices, with Mrs. Sellers’ encouraging and energetic directing from the gym floor below.