redone May 27 2004
redone May 27 2004
Basically, hi! My name is Terri Lee Worley. I am the Choir Director at Rice Middle School in Plano, Texas. I have just finished my first semester of teaching there, which was my first semester of teaching whatsoever. I graduated from the University of North Texas in Denton on December 13th, 2003 with a degree in music education, choral music concentration. I also work at Crabtree & Evelyn at Willow Bend Mall on the side, and teach private voice lessons and sing at weddings. Anything else you care to know should probably be covered in the following categories, or elsewhere on the page.
My family
My parents met in high school, circa 1962 or 1963, married in 1969, fresh out of college, and are still happily married. I have two older brothers, Wayne is twelve years my senior, and Chuck is ten years older than me. Wayne is married to Maria, and has two sons, Michael and Adam, who were born in 1995 and 1997 respectively. They are Baptist and live a mile or two away from me, but with our busy and separate lives, we don't see a whole lot of each other. Chuck lives in Kentucky and has a busy social life and also is currently practicing Judaism. My parents are retired, Methodist, and live in North Carolina. We don't see a whole lot of each other as a family, but we do make a point of staying in contact and doing holidays together for the most part.
My academic history
I'll spare you the details, but I attended a different school every year or two of K-12. In Lexington, KY, I attended The Academy (T-1 and 1st), Yates (2nd), Maxwell (3rd), J.R. Ewan (4th and 5th), Morton MS (beginning of 6th), and the School for the Creative and Performing Arts (rest of 6th). The summer before 7th grade, while I was away at summer camp in West Virginia, my Dad got a job transfer to Dallas, so we moved to Plano, where I continue to live now. I attended Carpenter Middle School in 7th and 8th grades, Clark High for 9th and 10th, and Plano East Senior High for 11th and 12th. I graduated as the Senior Class Treasurer of a class of about 1,200 on May 25th, 1999. I then spent one semester at Indiana University in Bloomington and transferred to North Texas in January of 2000. And like I said, I graduated in December 2003.
My church
My parents were raised in religious families. My Dad was Missionary Baptist and my Mom was raised in the generic Christian church. When they first got married, they pretty much didn't attend church, from what I understand, until I was born. I was baptized as an infant at Aldersgate United Methodist Church in Lexington, where my parents had just joined. This church was probably about a mile from our house at that time. When we moved to downtown Lexington before my 3rd grade year, we switched churches so that we could go to the church that was within walking distance. It was a beautiful beautiful beautiful old church in downtown Lexington, First United Methodist. We were very active members there for I guess about five years, until we moved to Plano in 1993. I was in kids choirs and handbells, and for the year that I was there as a youth, I got confirmed and did youth group and went to camp and sang in the youth choir and did youth handbells. When we moved to Plano, we checked out the 4 area Methodist churches and eventually picked First United Methodist Church, even though it was not geographically the closest. We felt (or I guess I felt) it was the least pretentious, happiest, most inviting church we visited. So, we became members there and immediately became very active. I joined the youth choir (New Horizon Choir) and youth group and pretty much did everything I possibly could while I was there. Over the six years I was a member of that church as a youth, I was continuously involved in choir, youth group, sunday school, and also the smaller New Covenant Singers whenever it existed, and I think there was also youth handbells for a year in there somewhere. I also got involved in the administrative end of things, serving on the youth council and youth cabinet and youth board and the administrative board. I was technically the president of the youth group for my last couple of years there, even though I don't think it really amounted to much more than a title. I also sat on a couple or three search committees for various staff members while I was there. When I transferred back to North Texas in 2000, I started commuting back to attend church. For a time I was a paid employee of the church, working with the youth and children's choirs and children's chimes. These days I'm mainly a worship participant and semi-leader in the Young Adult class.
My extra-curricular activities
Seems like just about everything you could be interested in, I tried at least once or twice, except for athletic-type things. Never really got into team sports or anything like that as a kid. Music was easily identifiable as my major field of interest from an early age. I remember being involved in choirs at church from the very beginning. So, choir has been my life for pretty much, my life. I took ballet for a little while when I was real real young (like, 4ish) and again when I was in 4th grade. I was in Lexington Children's Theatre's summer program for elementary age kids for two or three summers in a row and performed in something like eleven or twelve little plays over those three years. In 4th grade and 5th grade I did FPS, Future Problem Solving, which I thought was real cool, and we were state champions or something... I forget how that worked. And I was on the Academic Team too. In 4th grade, I played in the orchestra, like everyone did. I played violin. When I was in 5th grade everyone joined band and choir. I did choir, of course, and started out on French horn in the band until I got tired of lugging it around and switched to clarinet. I only played for my 5th grade year though... I knew I was a choir junkie at heart. In 6th grade I was in Beta Club and I was the spelling bee champion of my school. This was the arts school, and I also was a Vocal Music Major and Theatre Arts Minor with and elective in [shock, dismay] choir. Upon moving to Plano, one of the first things I did was join Plano Children's Theatre. Over the next five semesters, I was Lady Capulet in Romeo and Juliet, a bit part in My Fair Lady, Mrs. McAfee in Bye Bye Birdie, Chava in Fiddler On The Roof and Ellen (a bit part) in Oklahoma. In 7th grade I was in choir some more and did Student Senate I think. Oh and I was an understudy for the role of Little Victoria in the school play, the Shame Of Tombstone. 8th grade was the year I joined Honor Society and did OM (Odyssey of the Mind) and of course choir. 9th grade was Honor Society and choir and Madrigal Singers. 10th grade was the same, plus Celebration (show choir) and the school play again, as Ginger Brooks in The 1940's Radio Show. In 11th grade at Plano East I did the normal choirs, both concert and treble, as well as ShowStoppers (treble jazz choir). I was in NHS and Student Council and BPA and Jazz Club and was published in the literary magazine, Aurora. I think that was all. And senior year, same treble choir and concert choir and Sound Invention (the mixed jazz choir). I also conceived and developed the webpage for the jazz choirs that year, which is still up and running, although not updated enough for my taste, at www.oocities.org/peshjazzchoirs. Also senior year, I still did Honor Society and BPA and got published in Aurora again, as well as planning the prom and graduation and all the other fun that goes along with being a class officer. Also that year I started FARE, Fine Arts Recognition at East, which was a nice little idea.... basically, it was all about publicizing arts events that went on at East so that people could at least pretend to care as much about them as thy did football. heh. FARE was fun, but I think it promptly died when I left. And that's pretty much all for senior year I think. At Indiana I was a member of the IU Singing Hoosiers, which was fun. During my time in Denton I was a member of the A Cappella choir for 6 semesters, Jazz Singers II for 2 semesters, and UNT Jazz Singers for 4 semesters.
My "personal" life
I'm recently un-single, as I have a boyfriend named Andrew who has been my boyfriend for just under a month as I write this. He is wonderful, at least so far, and we'll see how this goes. So far, so wonderful. About him, he is 19, just finished his first year in the jazz program at CCCC as a guitarist. He's planning to transfer to my alma mater after another year or so at CCCC. Very good guy, met him at church.
My ambitions
I have now graduated college and become gainfully employed as a choir director. I'm in the process of establishing myself in my field, and just sort of getting better at what I do. Long term plans... well, I have no plans to be anywhere but Rice for at least the next year or two or three, but after 3 or 4 years, I imagine I might be ready to move on. As to whether I see myself as a lifelong Texan, or whether I may end up elsewhere... I suppose much of that will rely upon my aforementioned "personal" life. I hope to get married at some point, preferably before I turn 30, and have children. Chuck and I have a race going to have the first son, since we both favor the name Nathaniel. He wants to name his son Nathan Terry. I want a Nathaniel, middle name Mason or Trent. I also have favored names for my other unborn children, but I don't plan to post them here. Que sera sera.
