Distinguished Alumni Award - Cheryl Lavender 

Cheryl Lavender, ’73, is internationally recognized as a master music educator, composer, and clinician.

She has taught music for 30 years at the elementary, middle, high school, and university levels, and currently teaches at Swanson Elementary School and Wisconsin Hills Middle School in the Elmbrook School District in Brookfield, Wis. In 1993, she received the district’s Outstanding Teacher Award.

As an author and composer, Cheryl has published more than 40 classroom resources for music educators including music games, song collections, and teaching strategies.  Some of her most widely used titles include “Making Each Minute Count” (proceeds benefit the National Alliance For the Mentally Ill), “The Ultimate Music Assessment and Evaluation Kit,” “Songs of the Rainbow Children” (proceeds benefit South African and American schools), “Rhythm and Melody Flash Card Kits,” and her popular Bingo series including “Instrument Bingo,”  “Music Styles Bingo,” and “Rhythm Bingo.” 

Cheryl also is a contributing composer and author for the MacMillan/McGraw-Hill music textbook series “Spotlight On Music” as well as Music Express magazine. Both publications are used extensively in elementary and middle school classrooms across the country.

In 2004, Cheryl was one of 12 recipients nationwide to be awarded a Arts@Work grant from the NEA Foundation, which funded the Wisconsin Hills Middle School music/technology piano lab. In 1996, she traveled to South Africa representing the United States as a music educator for the Dwight D. Eisenhower Citizen Ambassador Program.