Bessie Wheeler Shepherd
Bessie Shepherd began her piano study with Margaret Rippey, a well known keyboard performer in the Portland, Oregon area in the 1920's. While studying with Rippey, she taught piano at nearby Columbia Academy in Battleground, Washington. She entered Walla Walla College in 1929 and completed a two-year diploma in piano performance in 1931, the only degree they offered at that time. She also studied violin under John Hickman and voice with Ruth Havstad and Lon C. Metcalfe.
Following graduation and her marriage to Reginald Shepherd, she taught piano, violin and voice in a teaching career that would include appointments at Laurelwood and Auburn academies and a number of schools in California, including three years at Glendale Academy where she taught classroom music. In 1977, she moved to Pasco Washington where she taught piano for 21 years, until she fully retired in 1998, after 70 years of teaching.
All during those years she attended workshops and continued to study piano privately, taking lessons from Leonard Richter at Walla Walla College as late as the 1980's.
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