Worthington orchestra instructor Melanie Loy learned her lessons well.

Blessed with motivational mentors, she strove to emulate their words and actions throughout her musical teaching career. Loy, 62, credits their examples for making her a super-motivator in her own right.

Since 2006, Loy has helped expand the orchestra program in a diverse but geographically isolated southwestern Minnesota community to more than 350 fourth- through 12th-grade students.

For her considerable and long-running contributions to music, Loy was honored in May with the Southwest Minnesota Arts Council's 2022 Prairie Disciple award. The award is given to one person annually from the 18-county southwest Minnesota region.

The council will celebrate and formally recognize Loy on Sept. 24.

"Melanie is a real inspiration to her students, not only because she shows that she cares about them but also because her love of music is contagious," said Diane Wright, a retired music educator from Marshall who was a regional colleague of Loy's.

The modest Loy was initially reluctant to embrace the recognition. "And then it made sense to me," she said, noting that the definition of disciple "is a follower or student of a teacher, leader or philosopher."

Loy's birth name — Schwartzwalter — speaks to her 100% German heritage; she grew up in the Fargo, N.D., area, the fourth of five children.

"My dad was a World War II veteran. He and mother demonstrated a very strong work ethic," she said, recalling her parents' early farming efforts near tiny Streeter, N.D., that morphed into long hours running a laundry and dry-cleaning business in Fargo.

But her father was never too tired to watch the "Lawrence Welk Show" with his daughter. Together, they admired the "champagne" orchestra led by Welk, a fellow North Dakota native of German descent.

"Dad was so proud to buy me my first violin from a Montgomery Ward catalog," said Loy.

"Had we stayed in Streeter, N.D., I wouldn't have had the opportunity to move into orchestra."

Always an enthusiastic student, Loy glowingly describes her energetic middle school Spanish teacher ("I can still see her smile, her dress, her enthusiasm," she noted) and her middle school choir director — Yoshiteru "Yosh" Murakami — a 1951 St. Olaf College graduate who emerged from two years in a Mojave desert internment camp without a shred of bitterness but a passion to teach music.

"He had a twinkle in his eye, and he instilled in his students the belief that practice and working together as an ensemble could create beautiful music," Loy said. "I received a choral award at Fargo South High School named for him — maybe because his family saw I believed in what he did."

As a North Dakota All-State Orchestra high school participant, Loy met William LaRue Jones, a legendary conductor and bassoonist who went on to found and lead the Greater Twin Cities Youth Symphonies. He's served as director of orchestral studies and conductor of orchestra and opera at the University of Iowa since 1997.

"With all the people he knows in the world, he always remembers my name," Loy said. Years later, she took her Worthington High School orchestra students to Jones' spring orchestra festival in Iowa City, where she said his attitude of acceptance for all musicians, no matter their ability level, remained intact.

When earning her bachelor's degree at Concordia College, Moorhead, Loy played under the baton of J. Robert Hanson.

"I admired, respected and worked hard for him," Loy said, "and he was another link in my chain of great mentors."

While taking a break from full-time teaching to raise her three children, Loy maintained a private strings studio, trained in the Suzuki teaching method, served as a part-time adjunct faculty instructor at Concordia and led children's choirs, including a 1,000-voice chorus for a Luis Palau event in Fargo.

Upon re-entry to public school teaching, Loy spent five years at a Sioux Falls middle school before moving to Worthington.

Today, the Worthington school district's K-12 student population of about 3,350 is composed of roughly 68% ethnic minorities; Loy has welcomed students from every cultural background into her orchestra fold.

"I see potential in everyone," Loy said. "And I love the diversity of the kids and the varying cultures they represent.

"I learn from them, and with my young ESL students, I try counting in Spanish or Karen or whatever their language is as a way of connecting with them."

One recent Worthington High School graduate, Alex Mazariegos, was born in Guatemala and will be a first-generation college student at Southwest Minnesota State University, Marshall, this fall. Loy started him on violin as a fourth-grader, and he continued playing thereafter, rising to join the Worthington Area Symphony Orchestra, which Loy founded along with three other string players in 2010.

"What I love about Mrs. Loy is that she is an awesome person," said Mazariegos. "She is willing to put others before herself and she dedicates countless hours to students, even skipping her own lunch or working after hours to give lessons.

"Through the years, there were points when I needed help financially with an instrument, and she was there for that."

Mazariegos intends to continue playing with the Southwest Minnesota Orchestra at SMSU, where Wright is principal violist.

"The success of a string program in an outstate rural area is due to a strong individual who is really dedicated to keeping it going, and Melanie Loy is that person," said Wright.

Loy said she's just content to carry out the legacy "of the great teachers and mentors who influenced me and showed me what the arts can do to bring joy to a community. Every child can succeed when nurtured with love."

Jane Turpin Moore is a Northfield writer and frequent contributor to Inspired.