The DeSoto High School choir director now boasts a Grammy award in her stock of achievements after winning the prestigious honor this week.
“What I think my students really realize now is that what I’ve been doing has always been for them and not about me,” longtime teacher Pamela Dawson said in a release.
Dawson received this year’s Grammy Music Educator Award along with $10,000 and a matching grant for her school’s music program.
The award recognizes educators who have made a “significant and lasting contribution to the music education field and demonstrate a commitment to the broader cause of maintaining music education in the schools,” according to a DeSoto news release.
Originally from Detroit, Dawson moved to Texas in 2006. She recalls her mother telling her she didn’t know where DeSoto is, but that she was going to take the city “by storm.”
Under her leadership, the high school’s choir program has bloomed into a “national powerhouse” that has traveled and won several competitions across the world.
Dawson’s choirs have performed in New York at Carnegie Hall as well as at the Southwestern American Choral Directors Association national honor choir. Some of her former students have enrolled in highly regarded music programs and even have performed on Broadway.
Judges chose Dawson — who has taught at the school for 16 years — out of 10 finalists from across the country. The nine other finalists will receive $1,000 and matching grants.
The choir director had previously made it into the top 10 finalists in 2021.
Dawson’s “commitment to excellence and positive impact to students’ lives is demonstrative of what makes this such an amazing school community,” DeSoto ISD Superintendent Usamah Rodgers said in a release.
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