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taught me to play the piano when I was just 13,” Norma Nell said. “I rode a horse down to her house for my frst lesson.”

“I rode a horse to take piano lessons too,” Olene said. “I started playing for this church when I was nine years old, and now I’m 87. That’s a long time.” Walter Rippetoe taught Olene to play the piano.

At last count there were more than a half-dozen accomplished pianists at the Highland Church and a half-dozen more in training. Olene or Norma Nell taught many of the experienced pianists, and their students are now teaching the younger ones.

The singing schools provided more than just a chance to sing; the participants were also afforded the opportunity to learn to read “shaped notes” music – even the youngest participants.

Both Olene and Norma Nell recall vivid details of those early day schools, including their nervousness at being called on to sing the notes once they were memorized.

David Locke, the pastor at Highland for the past 30-plus years, remembers attending singing schools at Lake Worth, Texas at a very young age. “I could read music before I could read words,” he said. Locke said that many of the Highland residents also attended schools at other towns.

“The Stamps School of Music was held in Dallas every year and they would have a three-week ‘normal’. A lot of these people (Highland community residents) would spend three weeks up there,” he said. “In addition to learning to sing shaped-notes, they would learn diction and correct timing – the schools taught all aspects of music.” Some Highland residents even attended schools in other states.

Billy Keith, who was the congregational song leader at the Highland Church for more than 50 years, attended one of the three-week sessions in Dallas, but said the singing schools at Highland were the most important part of his musical education. Now 84, Billy said he remembers attending the Highland sessions every year, and thoroughly enjoying them – for more than the music. “They were a very important part of a young person’s social life back then,” he laughed. “It was a great place to meet girls. One time I read a poem that my daddy wrote to my mama, and it was all about them going to the singing schools together.”

A lifelong Highland resident, Billy has many fond memories of Walter and Ernest Rippetoe, even beyond their musical legacy. “I remember when Walter Rippetoe lived down the road here…before he went to Dallas to sing with the Stamps Quartet,” he said. “He used to have