Born in LaGrange, Georgia, Dell Grace Schroeder is the oldest of 4 children, all of whom played music. Dell was educated in the LaGrange Public Schools, participating in bands on saxophone and bassoon from grades 7-12. She earned first chair bassoon in the Georgia All State Band her senior year at LaGrange High School. She entered Converse College, participating in the Spartanburg Symphony and the Converse College Tour Chorus. Before transferring to FSU her junior year, she spent a summer working at National Music Camp, now Interlochen Arts Camp. The experience of working for Joe Maddy, the King of Music Advocacy, was a privilege unmatched anywhere.
A junior transfer to Florida State, Dell signed up for Marching Chiefs, directed by Manley Whitcomb and Robert Braunagel, and continued with Symphonic and Concert Bands. She earned a letter in band (her first!) and was tapped for Tau Beta Sigma, Women’s F Club, as well as Alpha Chi Omega. After graduating with a BME degree in Instrumental Music, she taught vocal and general music in Brunswick, Georgia, armed with FSU’s Irving Cooper’s research on boys’ changing voices.
Not interested in leaving Brunswick with a toe tag, she joined Delta Air Lines as a flight attendant and traveled extensively, meeting her husband, Cart, and subsequently landing permanently in San Diego, just as budget cuts were beginning to undermine music, drama and art programs. Earning a Master of Arts in Music from San Diego State University, Dell watched the disintegration of the arts continue until Proposition 13 dealt the final blow. Not many school districts had the strength to hold on to their arts programs after “Prop 13.” A decade of near-silence in music went by before the arts began to reappear in the public schools. Her memory of the first City Schools’ Honor Band/Orchestra concert after “the silence” was one of shock at how quickly a language can die, and how long it takes to reestablish that language. As soon as Dell’s neighborhood’s junior high program came back, she began volunteering, co-establishing the Peninsula Bands in Concert at Point Loma Nazarene University (Dan Nelson) which just now celebrated its 20th year. The goal to fill the gym floor with young musicians still remains, but this year, it was close! That same year, she established a music camp in her back yard with eight students. Five years later, Dell was hired and worked as an elementary itinerant band teacher for the schools in her neighborhood, helped along by Community Council for Music in Our Schools which loans donated instruments at low rates for children whose families can’t afford rent-option programs. During that time, the junior high band enrollment grew from 13 to 120, and the high school band began its return from “the dark.” The backyard music camp has grown from 8 students from 3 schools to over 70 students from 27 area schools. Offshoots of the Music Camp (Floot Troop, Floot Moms, Saxophone Insanity, Full Bar Saxophone Quartet) have performed in a variety of venues including nursing homes, park celebrations and concert openings, and media attention has been attracted.
Through Sarah Carter Pankaskie, Dell got back on the FSU bandwagon with the founding of the FSU Band Alumni Association, subsequently serving on the board. She was on the board when the Endowment (Ed Hornbrook) came to be and was responsible, during her tenure, for finding band alumni west of the Mississippi and out of the country, before computers. She also gathered alumni band members to participate in the Disneyland Pigskin Classic in the early 90’s. She has nearly four volumes of photographs of BAA Homecoming Activities, having missed only two Homecomings since the FSUBAA began. Dell is also a member of the Southern California Seminole Club, and continues to play the saxophone with the San Diego Concert Band. She is very excited about the prospect of being on the Wall of Fame and thanks all of those who helped her along the way.