New music teacher finds her dream home in Ten Sleep

Like many who travel through Ten Sleep, Grace Kienzle mused on what it would be like to live in such a place.

She said, "My now husband and I went on a trip to Yellowstone last August, and we drove through Ten Sleep on our way. As soon as we got here, I said 'Oh my gosh, where are we? I want to live here.'"

Fate would have it that Kienzle would do exactly that when she accepted the position of K-12 music educator at the Ten Sleep School for the 2023-2024 school year.

A 2023 graduate of Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell, South Dakota, Kienzle is originally from Custer, South Dakota, where she grew up around music starting at a young age. Her mother enrolled her in piano lessons when she was "really little," and she would branch out to playing the clarinet when she was in fifth grade. She recalled, "I remember I did not like it at the time. I was using a wooden clarinet though, which is harder to play than a plastic one, so that's probably why I was having a hard time."

She stuck with the clarinet through high school, where she picked a music class for every elective she could. An exciting moment for her during this time was her sophomore year when she discovered her favorite instrument. Kienzle said, "I went into the back room where all of our extra instruments were, and I found a ginormous case on the floor. I was like, 'This is the coolest thing ever, what is it?' I opened it up, and it was a giant contra-alto clarinet and I have played it ever since. I bought my own when I went to college, and it was the main instrument I played in the concert band."

Aside from playing instruments, Kienzle said that she has also been called a good singer. She often sang the national anthem for events in her hometown growing up as well as singing in the church choir. She said that she went on to be a member of her college's chamber choir, an audition-only 10-member choir.

With such a background in music, one would be surprised to find out that Kienzle was not going to pursue a degree in it when she enrolled. She said that essentially, lots of last-minute decisions led to her swiftly changing majors.

Kienzle wasn't sure where she was going to go to college when the time was getting close, so she decided that she would make the familiar decision of going to the school where her older brother had gone to wrestle for a year, Dakota Wesleyan University.

She said, "I started college as a biology major. I wanted to do wildlife biology; I really liked animals and stuff. Looking back now, it was a really horrible decision because I'm allergic to anything with fur, but that's what I wanted to do."

After making her decision, Kienzle went to audition for both the choir and band to see if she could earn scholarships through music. She said that after she was accepted for both programs, both program directors asked her, "Why are you not in music education?"

She had never thought about it before then, but after some reflection Kienzle decided to follow their advice. She said, "I decided not to go for biology. I also decided not to go for track, which I also wanted to do, because I had to pick between the track and choir scholarships. I was going to sing if I was doing music education."

She was ultimately happy with her decisions, but she was still unsure if the education half of her degree is what she wanted to do. She continued, "I went to college the first year and I absolutely loved playing. That's my biggest thing. As the years went on, I thought, 'well, I'm really enjoying the classes, but I don't know about the teaching thing. I'm a student at heart. When college finally ended and I had to go student teach, I was like, 'um, this is weird. Now I'm the one teaching, not learning."

Kienzle was able to overcome this obstacle since then, saying, "I've learned that it's not a matter of who is learning and who is teaching, it's a matter of: I love something so much that I want to give that to other people. So my passion for music and my passion for playing is what I want to show to the students, and I want them to love it as much as I do."

As for her time in Ten Sleep, she has enjoyed it for the short time she's been there, she said. Kienzle graduated from college in May, went home for the summer, got married at the end of July and went on her honeymoon vacation in Mexico all before arriving home in Ten Sleep two days before she started work in August. Although it was a whirlwind for her and her husband leading up to the school year, she said that they have been able to find time to enjoy their new home.

She said, "I'm from out in the Black Hills, so I'm used to living around mountains, and pine trees, and this kind of weather and I'm just a huge fan of being here so far." She continued, "Every weekend we've explored a new trail or we've done some sort of riding around. We've gone to Worland, we've gone to Thermopolis, we've gone up to the Big Horns. It's been nice, because during the week I'm here in the classroom and on the weekends I'm gone. It's definitely been an adventure."

Kienzle said that as a first-year music teacher, she is very excited for the Veterans Day Concert. She said, "I'm really looking forward to the first concert with my students. I didn't know what to expect when they came in the first day, and I've already seen them improve so much that I'm just so excited to see where they're at when Veterans Day comes around. I can see in their eyes that they want to learn."