Mary Dunn: Pioneer of Music Education in Texas (1888–1972)

Mary Dunn, music teacher, was born in Baird, Callahan County, Texas, on November 27, 1888, to Robert Franklin Dunn and Mary Louella (Spruill) Dunn. Her father was a circuit-rider Methodist minister, and the family moved often throughout Texas in her early years. The 1900 census listed the family in Erath County. After she graduated from Switzer Woman’s College and Conservatory of Music in Itasca in Hill County, Texas, in 1907, she became a student teacher at the college for a number of years. The 1910 census listed the Dunn family in Itasca and included Mary Dunn and her eight siblings in the household. Dunn then went into private piano teaching in Muskogee, Oklahoma, and Matador, Texas. From 1917 to 1920 she taught piano connected to the public schools in Sweetwater, Texas.

In 1922 Dunn went to work for the Lubbock Public Schools as the director of music, a position she held until 1936 when she established a private piano studio in her home. Two of her sisters, Myrtle and Beulah, were also music teachers and joined her in her home studio. Mary Dunn is best-known for her work promoting music education across Texas. In 1923 she helped organize the South Plains Music Teachers Association and was named its first president. In its early years, Dunn was instrumental in organizing the group’s annual festivals and coordinating guest artists’ performances. She was also a charter member of the Lubbock Music Club in the 1920s. She was a longtime member of First United Methodist Church in Lubbock.

She became involved in state-level work and held various offices, including state chair of the Tri-State Music Festival in 1932 and 1936, before becoming president of the Texas Music Teachers Association in 1936 and 1937. In the mid-1930s Dunn created a codified course of applied music in Texas, and in 1939 the Texas Department of Education named Dunn the chair of their applied music division. This enabled music students to receive school credit for private music instruction, as well as creating guidelines for the Interscholastic League’s (see UNIVERSITY INTERSCHOLASTIC LEAGUE) first contest in 1940 for applied music in solo and ensemble competitions.

Dunn remained active with the South Plains Music Teachers Association (now known as the Lubbock Music Teachers Association) and the Texas Music Teachers Association’s various student festivals and competitions into the late 1960s. Additionally, she helped initiate Lubbock’s Sunday Twilight Music Hour—a free concert series that showcased student talent and professionals and was held at the West Texas Museum (now Museum of Texas Tech University) on the campus of Texas Technological College (now Texas Tech University). She also wrote and published articles on piano and music theory.

In 1965 the Texas Music Teachers Association named her their Texas Music Teacher of the Year. She lived in Lubbock until her death and, through the 1960s, remained involved heavily in local music education activities with music festivals, workshops, master classes, and her day-to-day teaching duties. The city of Lubbock declared March 30, 1968, as “Mary Dunn Day” and cited how generations of twentieth century musicians got their start on the South Plains because of Dunn. Referred to as the “first lady of music on the South Plains,” she was presented a plaque “in appreciation of her untiring efforts in promoting the fine art of music and setting standards of excellence in the cultural development of West Texas.” In March 1971 Dunn was honored with the Jack Sheridan Cultural Achievement Award by the Phi Sigma Alpha Assembly in Lubbock.

Mary Dunn, who never married, died at Ray’s Hospitality Home in Lubbock on May 2, 1972. She was buried in the City of Lubbock Cemetery.