This past school year was Melanie Ryterski’s last with the Waterloo School District, having spent 27 years helping young students fill their lives with music.

A longtime music teacher at Zahnow Elementary School, Ryterski was born in Sparta, though she moved north to Carlyle early in life, later attending Mater Dei Catholic High School in Breese.

After high school, she attended Eastern Illinois University for her undergraduate degree in music education – with both a vocal emphasis and a focus on the piano – and she later received her masters degree in elementary education at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

Recalling how she first became interested in music education, Ryterski noted how quickly her passion for music developed, also crediting her aunt for acting as a positive role model.

“My aunt, who is also my godmother, was an elementary teacher for 35 years,” Ryterski said. “I always looked up to her. She was a big influence on me. And I started playing the piano when I was 7. I enjoyed it. I loved music, and I thought that would be something that I wanted to teach other people.”

Out of college, Ryterski’s first teaching job was in a K-12 building in the Mississippi Valley School District in Gorham near Murphysboro. As she described, she effectively was the school’s music department.

By the end of her second year there, the school actually dissolved, and while those tenured teachers were brought on at other neighboring districts, she and several coworkers simply got a letter thanking them for their time and wishing them the best of luck.

Ryterski got married that summer, with she and her husband – recently retired Columbia High School music teacher Craig Ryterski – moving out to Colorado where he taught music and she taught art, which she admitted wasn’t a very good fit for her.

They later returned to Illinois, and she taught in Bethalto for several years.

From there, she was contacted about a part-time position at Zahnow, though she was only interested in a full-time job.

As Columbia was similarly looking for a part-time music teacher, Ryterski recalled that Waterloo paid her a full-time salary and benefits while Columbia compensated Waterloo, and she wound up working in both districts, spending the morning at Zahnow and the afternoon at the old unit building in Columbia.

She was brought on full-time her second year at Zahnow, and she’s remained in the district ever since.

Offering an overview of her classes, Ryterski described how she would get students warmed up for her class with a song and oftentimes a small exercise to help them work out some energy before moving into the daily lesson.

Lessons would largely revolve around singing and playing with rhythm instruments.

Ryterski spoke about how students were particularly fond of games with Looloo, a singing tennis ball she would use to test students on identifying songs, echoing back tunes or matching pitch.

As with her warm-ups, plenty of her classes also focused on getting the kids moving, doing some light choreography to songs she would play.

Ryterski also mentioned the structure and schedule of her classes, with music running parallel with P.E. every other day.

Early in her time at Zahnow, these periods would often have two or even three classes in them. Ryterski said that she and previous Zahnow P.E. teacher Karla Bivins – who retired last year – made a big push to bring those class sizes down.

“Karla Bivins and I worked really hard to get all single classes, and even though we couldn’t do much about the time constraints – we were still at 20 minutes most of the time – that we could have one class at a time and fit everyone into the schedule so that we had more quality teaching times with those kids and not have such humongous class sizes,” Ryterski said.

Along with Looloo, Ryterski said one of the most memorable parts of her class for students seemed to be the Christmas program, which has largely remained the same over the years albeit with a smaller number of songs nowadays.

“The thing that probably stands out the most, what people remember most is the kindergarten Christmas program,” Ryterski said. “We’ve been doing basically the same Christmas program since I think the early 1970s… I will have people come up to me after the program and say, ‘Oh, I remember when I was in kindergarten, I was Santa’s helper!’ or, ‘I was a Susie Snowflake!’ or, ‘I was Dasher!’ It’s a beloved, cherished tradition.”

Even as there were a number of incidents with students falling off the risers or running into some other trouble on stage – Ryterski said pretty much anything that could go wrong had done so at some point over the years – she still spoke about the program quite fondly.

She expressed particular pride in the students as, even if the performance was looking rocky in the later practices, they always managed to pull things together for a strong show.

Ryterski said it’s her understanding the Zahnow Christmas program will continue in some way with the incoming music teacher.

While many students remember that performance, Ryterski noted she does as well. She similarly pointed to the many smaller performances in her classes as the highlights of her career.

“There is not a feeling that I can think of that makes me happier than seeing kids making music together and hearing them make music and having fun, seeing the joy on their faces when they do it,” Ryterski said. “It just gives me goosebumps. You have those moments where everything comes together, and you see the kids really understand what they’re doing. They know that they’re making something special and beautiful.”

Looking back on her career, Ryterski offered a piece of advice for teachers that she herself had the good fortune of learning at a music educators’ conference some time ago.

“Kids will not care about what you’re trying to teach if they don’t think you care about them,” Ryterski said. “That was a gut-punch, because I felt like I had been focusing on content, curriculum, trying to get this, this and this finished before the end of the school year when I should have been spending a lot more time just building those relationships with students.”

Relationship building has become increasingly difficult in recent years, she said, with the countless distractions students have today as well as the tremendous number of students teachers work with each year.

Things were even more difficult during COVID-19 pandemic precautions, with Ryterski putting together music lesson videos and simply hoping students were able to watch and get something out of them.

Nevertheless, she stressed the importance of getting to know students along with teaching them.

Joining Ryterski to offer thoughts on her career was Bivins. Both of them spoke to how close they had been during their time together at Zahnow.

“For 24 years, she was my work bestie,” Bivins said. “She and I worked closely, and we either would meet up early before school started or maybe it was after school, but we talked every day just kind of about our day, what we were doing, and sometimes it was just a session to unwind.”

Bivins further stressed how their relationship came to be quite strong both in and out of school.

She also praised Ryterski and the love she had for her students.

Bivins also spoke about how the two of them would help each other as best they could with their classes, echoing Ryterski’s sentiments about the two of them pushing to make class sizes smaller in order to better focus on students.

“We had fun together and just pushed to improve each other’s programs,” Bivins said. “We made it work, and we had each other’s backs, supporting each other’s programs. I would say she came to enjoy P.E., and, likewise, I enjoyed music.”

A much newer colleague and friend of Ryterski’s also had kind words to share, as current Zahnow P.E. teacher Heather Haare praised her for serving as both a friend and excellent mentor.

Though she had taught elsewhere for 14 years, this past year at Zahnow found her working in a new capacity with P.E., and Ryterski managed to both respect her previous experience while also offering guidance.

“She took me under her wing big time,” Haare said. “She was just such a good partner to have because she would do anything for me, answer any question. She made my year what it was by having her there.”

Like Bivins, Haare also had plenty of kind things to say about Ryterski and the energy she brought to her students as well as her coworkers.

“When it comes to the kids, she always had this love for teaching and for the kids and making sure that they were number one,” Haare said. “She was one to just show up: show up for the kids, show up for me, and she’s going to be really missed.”

Stepping into retirement, Ryterski is looking forward to doing some light traveling this year with hopeful plans for a return visit to Europe with her husband in the future.

She’s also been working part-time as a hostess at Sugar Spring Ranch, which she described as a good fit for herself given the experience she’s had taking care of her own home.

Ryterski, of course, will miss the many friendly faces she’s known at Zahnow, though she’s happy enough to step away from grading and the chaos that can often come with working as an elementary school teacher.

“I will definitely miss my students, and I’ll miss my Zahnow family,” Ryterski said. “People talk about how close-knit a family we have at Zahnow, and it’s true. We are like a family. I’ll miss my colleagues. I won’t miss all the paperwork.”