Retta Jane Valerio, a native of Portland, Oregon, was an accomplished organist who was described by one writer as "not only a brilliant performer" but as "one who possessed a charming and gracious personality." The daughter of Margaret Holden Rippey, an organist and former music teacher at Walla Walla College, she graduated from WWC in 1946. She subsequently received an M.S. in organ from The Juilliard School and became an associate in the American Guild of Organists.