WSU music ed grad inspired scores of students to become teachers
Betty L. (Kellum) Partridge ’55/68 — a longtime music educator who began her teaching career in Marion, Kansas, and went on to teach primarily elementary school music for 35 years at Wichita Public Schools — could play a mean clarinet. She could also sing beautifully and, taught by her mother, an accomplished pianist, had serious chops on the piano.
Her first-chair clarinet position in the high school band at Peabody, Kansas, earned her a scholarship to Wichita State, where she participated in both the concert and marching bands. While majoring in music education with an emphasis in instrumental music, she was also involved in vocal music through her church as a choir member, soprano soloist and director of children’s choirs and at WSU as a soprano in opera theater productions.
After her first teaching stint in Marian, where she taught music in both elementary school and high school classrooms, she married Joe Dale Partridge and returned to Wichita to settle into family life and begin her second stint as a public-school music teacher. In 1968, she earned a master’s degree in music education from WSU. She also taught private voice lessons, was active as a church musician and director of choirs and hand bells, and performed for many years with the Wichita Symphony Chorus.
“Betty Partridge was very influential not only in my life, but thousands of other students who had the wonderful experience of having her as their elementary music instructor,” says Billie Hegge-DuVal ’70/77, who is a prominent figure in the Kansas music education community, particularly as a leader in the Kansas Music Educators Association. “I knew from a very early age that teaching music was what I wanted to do, and Betty Partridge made my dream much more plausible as she was a young woman. Most public-school music positions seemed to be for male choral directors.”
After Partridge’s retirement from WPS, she extended her career as a music appreciation instructor at Butler Community College, teaching classes well past the age of 80. In 2016, she relocated to Lawrence, Kansas, which became her base for doing the things she enjoyed, including gardening, reading, watching Kansas City Chiefs football and staying in touch with family and friends.
Betty Partridge — wife, mother, musician and teacher — died Nov. 9, 2025, in Kansas City, Kansas.
