Lonna Bemben: Follow the Music!

Lonna Bemben, Northwest Elementary School

“Music teaches and touches us all inside…”

Lonna Bemben has spent most of her life singing and playing music. But when the time to go off to college came around, her parents had other plans. They didn’t think that society would value a musician or music educator as Lonna had been hoping to become.

With that in mind, Lonna dutifully went on to study nursing and became a R.N., beginning her career in a downtown Detroit hospital and, when her family relocated to the Hartland, working at the University of Michigan Hospitals. Caring for infants and children born with heart problems, she began using music to calm them and bring a little joy into their otherwise stressful lives. It worked. “And that’s when I fully realized the value of music,” she says. “It goes far beyond entertainment,”  Lonna adds. “Music teaches and touches us all inside.”

Lonna returned to school to obtain a music education degree at Eastern Michigan University. Now enjoying her eighth year of teaching with Howell Public Schools,  she currently teaches general music at Northwest Elementary School. “I have the best job in the world. I get children excited about learning. I get to lead them towards discovering how music integrates with all subject areas. I get to share with them how cultures have used music when they had nothing else left to hold on to; how we celebrate the good times with music and how we mourn  with it as well.  Music brings learning alive and brings meaning to learning.  It’s about seeing a child’s face light up when something touches them deep inside and they make a connection. That’s what teaching is all about,” Mrs. Bemben asserts.

In addition to teaching, Lonna is married and a mother of three children. Her eldest son Christopher is graduating from Ferris State this year with a degree in accounting and her second son Jonathan is a freshman at University of Detroit-Mercy studying biology and playing lacrosse. Her third son Ross is a junior at Hartland High School. Ross plays tennis and lacrosse and hopes to further his education in engineering in a couple of years.

Is there a lesson to be learned in Mrs. Bemben’s story?  Sure: when you hear that distant music of your true calling, pay attention and  follow it. If you’re as persistent as Lonna, you’ll catch up, no matter how long it takes to get there.