NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — A local educator is teaching his kids to get loud as a team. It's all about offering up opportunities that could lead to something great. It's all part of the legacy of one very special person.
In a classroom at Hattie Cotton Elementary, a band of students sat with guitars. Fifth graders Kendrick Robinson, Mahogani Hale, Sully Emery, Terrence White, Andreous Terry, and Sean Lackey were ready to play. The man who assembled this super group was teacher Dave Nooe.
Everyone's love of music sprang from a different place.
"I would say Kerry King," said Sully.
"I really like Slayer!" Sean added.
"Michael Jackson, baby!" Kendrick smiled.
"Sometimes I listen to rap," said Terrence.
Dave knows he's done something right when he heard one thing. We asked Kendrick who he'd like to play guitar like.
"Chuck Berry," Kendrick answered.
"I'm mostly getting the kids to work together and to cooperate and to learn to listen to each other," said Dave. "Get 'em to have fun! When it comes right down to it, and it's showtime, they put on a heck of a show. That's what it's about. It's controlled chaos, but the kids love it."
"I know we're not the best sounding," said Sully.
"I feel like we know what we're doing perfectly, but we're just scrambled sometimes," Terrence added.
"They're just little rockers!" laughed Jenny Anne Nooe, a fellow musician and Dave's wife.
Jenny Anne loves the way these lessons ignite that passion for making music in the kids. Dave's daughter, Charlotte, always had that same passion for music.
"She was brilliant," said Jenny Anne. "She had it, y'know?"
"She was not just a musician but a wonderful writer too," Dave said.
Charlotte had just recorded an album with her band and was at that point of breakthrough when in 2012, she died. Charlotte was 21.
"To keep her spirit alive through giving, that is a silver lining, and to find the silver lining in the loss of a child is extremely difficult," said Dave.
Dave and Jenny have done that. They've launched the Charleyville nonprofit, which has gotten scholarships to emerging writers and musicians and music lessons to hundreds of children over the past decade.
"I love being in this class," said Kendrick.
"The first song I ever learned on the guitar is in this room," said Sully.
"I'm learning how to play the guitar," added Mahogani. "I'm glad I'm here."
"To them, that is their first instrument," said Dave. "They're fifth graders. A lot of them I've been working with since kindergarten."
"I can just see [Charlotte] being with the kids, I think she would love it definitely," added Jenny Anne.
"I know she'd be grateful that the kids are having a ball," Dave continued. "By helping other people, we are helping Char's spirit. To celebrate her life and do more for others is just really a wonderful thing."
For more on the Charleyville nonprofit, visit here.
