Gary Swinyar
1949
-
Gary Swinyar,
band conductor and trumpet player, taught and served as an administrator in
Seventh-day Adventist schools for forty years. During nearly half of those years
he taught music full-time or while serving as a school administrator.
Swinyar was one of three children born to
Shirley Stockton and Ted Swinyar. Although his
parents' tastes in music differed, music was an important part of family life.
His mother, a clarinetist, insisted that he and his brother and sister take
music lessons and that they practice regularly. He chose to play the trumpet.
When he was eight, the family moved from Arkansas to Tennessee, to live in
Collegedale, near Southern Missionary College, now Southern Adventist
University.
Swinyar attended Little Creek Academy, a
nearby self-supporting academy, where music was a predominant activity. While
there, he studied trumpet with a teacher at the University of Tennessee and
when he enrolled as a music major at SMC, continued
with trumpet as his major instrument, studying under Jack McClarty.
McClarty, band director at the college at that time,
was both an inspiration and model for him as he studied and as he started
teaching.
He taught music and flying
and was boys' dean on a task force basis at LCA in the 1971-72 school year and then returned to SMC, where he met Carol Yvonne
Adams, a multi-talented musician who was also majoring in music education.
Following their graduation with degrees in music education in May 1973, they
married and moved to Oregon, where he taught music at Laurelwood
Academy.
Six years later, they moved
to Florida, and he taught at Forest Lake Academy until 1986, when they moved to
Alaska where he became principal at Anchorage Junior Academy. In 1990, they
moved to the island of Kauai, Hawaii, where he served as principal for four
years at the Kahili Adventist School before they
returned to the mainland.
During these years Carol
focused on being a mother to their two children and also taught as a freelance
music teacher, gave private lessons in piano and voice, taught pre-school and
kindergarten music classes, and conducted church children's choirs.
In 1994 Gary became the
principal at Buena Vista Elementary School in Auburn, Washington, where for a
short while he directed the advanced band and the handbell
choir. In his seven years at BVES, he also directed a handbell
choir at a nearby Lutheran church. During this time, Carol taught music in four
Adventist schools in the Seattle-Tacoma area and in the public schools in
Sumner, Washington.
In 2001, Gary became
principal at the Ruth Murdoch Elementary School in Berrien Springs, Michigan, a
position he held until 2004. During that time, Carol worked on an M.Ed. in curriculum and instruction, completing it in
2004.
At that time, the Swinyars moved to South Lancaster, Massachusetts, where he
became superintendent of education for the Southern New England Conference and
she began working in the Thayer Performing Arts Center, a community music
school associated with Atlantic Union College. She became its director in 2006.
In 2011 they relocated to the Gulf States Conference, where he served as
superintendent of education until his retirement in December 2013 and she as a
volunteer in elementary schools as they traveled in the conference. They now reside in Chino Valley, Arizona.
ds/2013
Sources:
Emails, 11 November 2008 and 6 June 2010; and Biographical Information Sheets
from Carol Swinyar, 25 November 2008 and February 11,
2010; other online sources. See Carol Adams Swinyar
for additional information about her life and career.