Kansas City Kansas Community College

One of Dale Shetler’s first moves when he was named vocal music director at Kansas City Kansas Community College was also one of his best – organize a community chorus.

“The interest was there, it just took someone to lead the way,” says Shetler. Now, 20 years later, Shetler will be directing his final Spring Concert. To be held Sunday, May 16, at 3 p.m. at London Heights Baptist Church, it will be extra special for the veteran conductor. “We’re going to have an Alumni choir of anyone who has sung in either the community chorus or vocal groups at the college,” he says proudly.

The Community Chorus, however, is just one of several major accomplishments by Shetler, who is retiring at the end of the spring semester. During his 20 years, he also:

• Established a Jazz Choir and Madrigal Singers that included 14 years of Madrigal Dinners and on-going annual performances in the Renaissance Festival.
• Together with Marlin Cooper started a Jazz Cabaret Dinner held each spring.
• Hosted a Master Works High School Honor Choir presenting master works each spring for seven years and in conjunction with the American Guild of Organists, a Schola Cantorium for 10 years.
• Developed a Habitat for Humanity program highlighted by benefit concerts of 100 voices at Yardley Hall that over a five-year period contributed $140,000 to Habitat for Humanity.

Throw in two major college concerts each semester plus the annual Candlelighting ceremonies and it totals upwards of a dozen concerts a year performed for crowds numbering anywhere from 100 to 800 music enthusiasts. In addition, he’s had vocal music groups perform both nationally and internationally highlighted by trips to England, Banff, Canada, and New York City.

“I’ve probably made music for more than 30,000 at KCKCC,” says Shetler. While he says in obvious jest that “Assuming 180 students a year for 20 years, 3,600 students have been touched by my charming charisma, enthusiasm and organic outlook on life,” it’s total true.

However, he wasn’t necessarily looking for full-time employment when he interviewed with KCKCC in the fall of 1989. “The College was looking for someone to finish the semester,” remembers Shetler. “I was selling windows and finishing my doctorate in Choral Conducting at the Conservatory of Music at UMKC when the College came looking for someone to take the place of Glenn Trent, who had to leave after two weeks with a disability.”

As it turned out, Shetler fell so much in love with teaching at the college level he never finished his doctorate. “It was a good fit. I loved the job, the students, the people, the work. I got the class work done but never finished the paper.”

Shetler called on many to organize the Community Chorus. “A group of church choirs would get together and presented Handel’s ‘Messiah’ each Christmas so there was a lot of interest in the community in an on-going community chorus,” says Shetler. Recently re-named the Community Chamber Choir it performs the works of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and others each Christmas and each spring and is very much one of his greatest loves.

“When you do music, the community experience is unlike anything else because you’re involved with art,” he says. “It’s the highest level of being involved with the dignity of humankind. It’s just inspiring to the individual. When we perform, I step back and let it happen. It’s so exciting when the group gets to that point.”

The Jazz Choir and Madrigal Singers were added in Shetler’s fourth year and are still today the backbone of the vocal music program while the Master Works High School Honor Choir annually introduces area high school singers to major works performed at the college level.

Growing up on a farm in Ridgefield, Wash., just outside of Vancouver, Shetler lost his right arm in a tractor accident when he was 14 years old but still was able to play on his high school football team. The starting center and all-conference honorable mention, he was also the team’s punter. After two years at Clark College in Vancouver, he graduated from Western Washington University in Bellingham with a major in music in 1969.

For the next 14 years, he would teach music in the Washington public school system in Odessa, Portland, Hoquiam and Spokane as well as graduate school at Eastern Washington before an opportunity to work with Eph Ely and his doctorate at the UMKC Conservatory of Music brought him to Kansas City in 1983 – and eventually KCKCC in 1989.

Married, he and his wife, Ruthann, have two children, Gavin in Portland, Ore., and Marta in Madison, Wis. There’s also a grandson in Madison and a granddaughter in Portland, which is one of the major reasons the Shetler’s will be moving to Portland in June. “We bought a fix-it-up home and have already had the foundation rebuilt but it needs a complete renovation,” he says.

Already offered a part-time teaching position, he’s also a motorcycle enthusiast. A graduate of KCKCC’s motorcycle instruction program, he’s made several lengthy trips in the summer months including two to the Mecca of motorcycles, Sturgis, S.D.

When Shetler arrived at KCKCC in 1989, there were three full-time faculty members and “about three adjunct” instructors. Today there are 22 adjuncts along with the full-time faculty of Jim Mair, Ian Corbett, Jerry Pope and Shetler.

“It’s a fabulous team, a dream team,” says Shetler. “It’s such a pleasure to work with the faculty and staff. Where in the world could you find a job that you loved getting up in the morning and coming to work with a fire. I’ve never taken a sabbatical because of that, I’ve been energized. And the students have been fabulous to work with. They’re just like sponges, wanting to learn.”