Stony Brook University bound Jasjeet Kaur has won this year’s Linda Shoemaker Blue Devil Marching Band Scholarship, which carries with it a $1,000 stipend. The Huntington High School Class of 2022 member plans to study biology in preparation for a career as a medical doctor.
Ms. Kaur said “finding a balance between schoolwork and having fun” has been the key to her success. She added that “making meaningful connections” between her favorite pastimes and schoolwork has contributed to her record of achievement.
Captain of the Huntington Blue Devil marching band battery, Ms. Kaur also played three years of softball with the Blue Devil varsity. She’s been a standout in the high school’s science research program and won awards in National History Day competitions.
The teenager said that among the most enjoyable aspects of the past four years has been the relationships she’s formed with faculty and staff members; the friendships she has developed with classmates and the engaging classes and extracurricular activities she has taken and participated in.
An accomplished musician and Huntington UFSD music teacher, Ms. Shoemaker enjoyed a three decade long career as the Blue Devil marching band director. She died peacefully in her sleep on August 10, 2019 at the age of 76.
Born in Bell, California in September 1942, Ms. Shoemaker’s love of music and her talent was inherited from both sides of her family where there were music educators and opera singers, according to an obituary posted online. She saw her first parade at age four and fell in love.
Ms. Shoemaker began studying clarinet as a fourth grader and later marched during the opening ceremonies of Disneyland in Anaheim on July 17, 1955 and in four Tournament of Roses parades in Pasadena.
A graduate of Downey High School in Modesto, California, Ms. Shoemaker studied at Long Beach State for two years and then accepted a full scholarship as the first chair clarinet at the University of Nevada, Reno. She later moved to Columbus, Ohio and took classes at Ohio State while working in a music store there.
Ms. Shoemaker accepted a teaching position in Huntington UFSD in 1967, initial working at Flower Hill and Woodbury Avenue School. She later became the Finley Junior High School band director and moved to Huntington High School in 1982 where she spent 15 years as a teacher and marching band director before retiring in 1997.
An avid photographer, Ms. Shoemaker traveled across the country, especially enjoying multiple trips to Ireland and Kenya. She frequently attended concerts and performances of the New York Philharmonic, New York Opera and Metropolitan Opera. Among her favorite singers were Luciano Pavarotti, Beverly Sills, Renata Tebaldi, Maria Callas and Leontyne Price.