Wilma Harman turns 90: A life of music and love.

By the time Wilma Harman was eight years old, her dad realized he couldn’t keep her away from a piano.

So, he went to an auction in Deer Creek and bought her a tall, gold-colored wooden piano built in 1917.

That same instrument still stands in Harman’s living room in her Blackwell home after decades of making music and being used by musicians-in-training.

“It’s just something I wanted to do so bad,” Harman said. “It’s just a thing in you that you just can’t control, a desire that you want to play.”

Harman, a widely known music educator in northern Oklahoma, turns 90 at the end of July.

For most of her life, she channeled her musical gifts and passion into teaching students in private lessons and public classrooms – even though she didn’t see it coming.

LEARNING LESSONS

Harman was six years old when her brother began taking accordion lessons from Lucille Donnelly at the Donnelly Music Store in Blackwell.

When Harman saw what her brother was up to, she couldn’t stand to be left out, she said. But her mother told her she wasn’t big enough to hold such an instrument.

“I cried all the way home, and that was 15 miles in the country,” Harman said. “So, the next Saturday, they went back in and told Lucille how I acted. And she said, ‘I can get her an accordion.’”

Two years after she started playing the accordion, she began taking piano lessons from a woman in Deer Creek, Ella Darland.

She still remembers the time she played at the First Methodist Church in Deer Creek, one of her earlier public performances. “I was horrible,” Harman said. said.

“I don’t know how people stood to sing.” Eventually, Harman’s skills grew. She was hired as the pianist at the Nardin Methodist Church when she was in high school, and she participated in various musical groups at school, both instrumental and vocal.

She also made her first attempt at offering private music lessons. At first, they didn’t go too smoothly.

“I had an accordion student, and after she left one day, I said, ‘Mom, heaven help me if I have to make a living giving music lessons,’” Harman said with a laugh.

Harman didn’t just find a love for music in high school. She and her longtime friend Lyman were married during her senior year in 1951. One month after her graduation, the two were living in Port Hueneme, California. Lyman was enlisted in the U.S. Navy as a Seabee, a military construction worker.

MOVING TO BLACKWELL

For the next four years, the two traveled around the country to live near the bases where Lyman was stationed. His Navy service ended in 1955, and the couple moved to Blackwell with their family in 1957.

That’s when Harman got involved with the Mother Singers, a local musical group that performed at community meetings and events.

When the group’s accompanist became ill, Harman was chosen to be the next pianist.

“That was the start of me in town on piano,” Har- man said. From there, Harman went on to play for numerous Blackwell groups and organizations.

A few years later, she helped create the Select Tones, an auditioned musical group to replace the disbanded Mother Singers.

Harman’s name began to spread around town, and in the mid-‘60s, the principal of Huston School asked her to be the school’s next music teacher.

“I said, ‘I’ve never taught music like that. I don’t know that I can,’” Harman said. “He said, ‘Yeah, you can.’” Harman turned the offer down, but it didn’t take long before she accepted a job as the middle and high school music teacher at Braman in 1965.

She spent her mornings rehearsing with the Select Tones before driving to Braman to teach.

The same year, she became an organist at the First Christian Church in Blackwell. When she returned home each day, she had a family to care for, too. While Harman was a teacher, she was also a student.

The Braman school principal encouraged her to go to college, so she enrolled at Northern Oklahoma College in Tonkawa, obtaining an associate’s degree.

She also learned from a music professor at Southwestern College in Winfield, Kansas.

“I never thought I’d go to college. That was the far- thest thing from my dream,” Harman said. “I just needed a pusher.”

HIGHER EDUCATION

When a new state law meant that teachers who hadn’t completed four-year college degrees couldn’t work in public schools, Harman was out of a job at Braman.

She had been there for six years and won several awards. That’s when she took a job at Northern Oklahoma College in Tonkawa as a secretary for Bill Heilman, founder of the NOC Roustabouts musical group.

The world-traveling ensemble was still small at the time, but Harman helped grow it. She led a women’s musical group, the Nocturnes, and she taught various music courses at the college in addition to serving as an accompanist.

The best part of teaching at NOC, she said, was getting to know the students and music faculty. Students often came to Harman’s house to watch movies and socialize.

“Music, dancing, singing – it was just all fun, and the camaraderie. If you would have gotten sick or you would have needed help, the whole group would have been there to help you,” Harman said. “It was a family, and that’s the way we were.”

While working at NOC, Harman finished her bachelor’s degree at Northwestern Oklahoma State University in Alva.

She later went on to Wichita State University to earn her master’s degree. And in addition to her other musical obligations in Blackwell, she served as director of the local Sweet Adelines women’s vocal group.

Harman retired from full-time employment at NOC in 2002 after a nearly 30-year career with the Roustabouts. In 2018, Harman was honored at the NOC Roustabouts Alumni Reunion, where numerous former students came to share stories about her and thank her for her influence in their lives.

A short biography of Harman read: “Not only does she teach music, but she adopt- ed so many of us, sharing her love, guidance, wisdom, and hospitality. She shared her family with us, making us feel a part of hers. She pushed when we needed to be pushed and hugged when we needed hugged.”

BACK TO BLACKWELL

After retiring from NOC, Harman spent a few years caring for her husband before she returned to the classroom. She spent several years working at Blackwell Public Schools as a high school choir accompanist, and she also played for several school musicals.

She accompanied numerous high school soloists at district competitions, and she played with the school’s various ensembles during some of their award-winning performances.

Meanwhile, she kept teaching private piano and voice lessons at home. Harman retired from teaching in 2017 because of her health, but she still keeps up with her students from NOC and Blackwell. She said she enjoys visits from them. Harman said she never reached a point where she realized she was meant to be a teacher or wanted to be one. And for a long time, she didn’t think she could.

“I didn’t think I had the patience,” she said. Having a family, she said, helped her cultivate the patience she needed. And her family reaches into the classroom. “Every one of them I claimed as my kid,” Harman said. “I still claim them as my kids. I guess ‘cause I love them. They come over, they kiss me, I kiss them back. They’re like my family. It’s just special.” On the topic of family, her piano will be kept in the family, too. Just like the piano, music is – in her words – “something you’re going to use all your life.”