Our 2015 KMEA In-Service Workshop was outstanding! A special thank you goes out to Jennifer Donovan for her leadership and enthusiasm in establishing the importance of elementary music here in Kansas. We had many opportunities for playing, singing, dancing, and improvising with our clinicians - Lynn Kleiner, Martha Riley, Jill Trinka, and Roger Sams. I also want to thank our sponsors for their generous support which allows us to have quality professional development.

I want to highlight the importance of our elementary students at our next KMEA In-Service Workshop. At the elementary level, we are fortunate to have a variety of opportunities for children to perform - recorder consorts, choral groups, drum circles, Orff ensembles. Wouldn't it be wonderful for our elementary students to showcase the variety that we see in our classrooms everyday by performing at the ISW! Allow me to encourage you to submit a recording of your performing group. Please refer to the KMEA website for deadlines and specific requirements for the CD. Please feel free to email me with any questions you may have regarding the submission process. The deadline for submissions is May 15, 2015.

Another great resource we have in Kansas is... YOU! If you have great ideas to share, why not present those ideas at our ISW? We would love to have sessions from our very own teachers sharing their successes. The deadline for session proposals is October 1, 2015 and the submission links are now open for both elementary performing ensembles and session proposals on our KMEA website at www.ksmea.org.

In our elementary classrooms, we provide a foundational musical experience for our youngest students and can set the stage for their development into accomplished musicians. I take that task seriously and am excited for the opportunity to support all of our Kansas elementary teachers in the hard work that you do every day. I look forward to working with you over these next two years and please do not hesitate to contact me with your suggestions and comments.