'As real as they come'

The thieves came in the dark of the night, making a real mess of things.

Broke right through the drywall, leaving a gaping hole in the main room of Gwen McCree's School of Music off Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in East Tampa. They hauled off two keyboards, amplifiers, a brand-new CD player and several sets of microphones.

"Imagine that, the nerve of it," the owner says, shaking her head.

What happened here on May 2 - breaking the law, dishonoring others, malicious mischief - is the exact opposite of what she's been teaching her whole life. "Miss Gwen," as everyone calls her, is all about respect, decency and doing the right thing.

She'll get through this. Just like she did in 1998, when thugs broke in and stole off with $10,000 worth of instruments. That time, three Good Samaritans stepped in, including New York Yankees boss George Steinbrenner, after reading about her plight in the newspaper. They promptly sent over checks to cover her losses and then some.

Now she's just making do, with far less inventory and a boarded-up hole in the wall. A few years back, she had a stroke, then, bam, a heart attack right after. But it wasn't long before she was back on her piano bench, going through scales with her students, who come after school and Saturdays for private lessons.

"I just can't see no stop sign," says Miss Gwen, 69. "It's always yellow. I just have the desire to keep on going."

Gwen McCree's name is well-known in Hillsborough County public schools, where she taught music for nearly three decades.

"If there was a problem on the bus, we'd call for Gwen. She knew how to get things resolved real quickly," says Claudia Davidsen, retired supervisor of elementary school education. "We called her the Queen of Discipline."

Miss Gwen is proud of that. The daughter of a Baptist preacher, she was raised from the get-go to respect her elders and follow the rules. He also instilled in her and sister, Jackie, that the "only way was God's way."

She has never wavered in her no-nonsense, drill-sergeant approach, from the school classroom to the music school she has run since 1976 and as director of the Inner City Boys Choir for 12 years. Davidsen credits Miss Gwen with keeping many a child from straying down the wayward path.

"There are young women and men in our community right now who are contributing citizens because of her, I have no doubt," she says.

Many of those students came from single-parent homes in low-income neighborhoods. They needed guidance and someone to give them self-confidence. And Miss Gwen, a divorced mother of a son and daughter, saw herself as the one to give it. She took her job as a positive role model seriously.

"You may just get one shot, maybe two, to get in their heads and teach them the right way," says Miss Gwen. "I didn't want to mess up my chance. There's so much potential in one life."

Turning around attitudes

The choir grew from her concern about urban kids having too much time on their hands and not enough God in their lives. But she couldn't preach that message in a public school. So she opened her cramped music studio on Saturdays for a Bible lesson, choir practice and heart-to-heart conversation, calling the program Positive Attitude Turnaround.

It didn't matter so much whether the kids could sing. Her first goal was to develop model citizens. That they began to make beautiful music was a bonus. The choir got so good that she toured with the boys, performing in churches and colleges. They even produced a CD.

In a dozen years, she has had a lot of success stories. Some of the dropouts went back to school to get their GEDs; others began excelling in the classroom and making plans for college. Julian Jackson, 19, is heading off to Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach in the fall to study criminal justice. He remembers Miss Gwen "on my case every day" about doing his homework and keeping up his grades. Saturdays would come, and his buddies would be out playing football or maybe messing around. He'd be at the music school.

"I look back, and I realize what she meant in my life," he says now. "This was my home away from home. You can't help but catch her passion. And it would inspire you to work harder and be a better person."

She had a few prodigies along the way, such as Dexter Lewis, now a junior at Boston Conservatory on a full scholarship. He's studying music theater.

He started with Miss Gwen at age 4, first on the piano and then as a singer. He says she taught him how to be fearless, giving him the confidence he needed to perform before audiences. She knew what it would take for a person of color to become successful, and she showed him how to do it.

Hard work, practice, truthfulness, Godliness, goodness and showing respect, she told him.

He's not quite sure how she did it, but Miss Gwen managed to be "very tough and very kind" at the same time. He is grateful for her influence and will carry her lessons with him the rest of his life.

"I believe she was put on Earth to do this, to help kids, and she will do it until she literally can't," says Lewis, 20.

Three years ago, when the stroke and heart attack laid her flat, she couldn't stop thinking of all the work still to be done. She prayed mightily to her Lord, asking for more time. Not for herself, but for all the kids out there who needed help.

Her prayers were answered, but only gradually. She couldn't do the choir anymore, or even the Saturday gatherings. She eventually started up lessons again, pacing herself as she regained strength. Her sister Jackie Davis, a retired school administrator, stepped in to run the business side of things. She arranged for Gwen to take a HART bus from her Palm River home to the music school, since driving is out of the question.

"She's too darn stubborn to use a cane," Jackie sighs. "I worry about her health and her living alone."

Fussin' is just something a younger sister does for her older one. Jackie does the books and has to contend with the lack of money coming in. Some months, she has to decide which utility bills to pay. The computer is outdated; in fact, a lot of the school's equipment is obsolete.

Still, Jackie is grateful for Gwen's determination. If she didn't have the school, "she would just sit down and wither away. This is what keeps her going."

One thing is certain: If the Gwen McCree School of Music was about making money, the doors would have shut for good a long time ago.

Music over money

Charlene Hall knows this. She's been bringing her 16-year-old daughter, Oshena, here for 11 years. "And I've only been able to pay for about three months in all that time," she admits.

Hall, 54, is the mother of four daughters. Her husband is a laborer earning minimum wage. But it's important to them that their daughter, talented in both piano and voice, gets to pursue her creative passion. The schools don't put much emphasis on the arts anymore.

"It's hard to find real folks anymore these days," Hall says. "Miss Gwen is one of them. She's as real as they come."

Miss Gwen can't get around as easily as she used to. But her mind and tongue are as sharp as ever. She still guides her students with the same advice she's been doling out for more than four decades: Do your homework, respect your elders, be kind to others, be grateful for your blessings and work hard.

You can be anything you set your mind to, she encourages them. Ten-year-old Patrick Jackson, who came into this world way too soon - 28 weeks - wasn't supposed to live, much less walk and talk.

Patrick has cerebral palsy and scars from surgeries, but he doesn't need the feeding tube he depended on half his life. Under Miss Gwen's tutelage since age 3, he has learned to sing like an angel. On cue, he will break into a sweet falsetto rendition of "I Believe I Can Fly." He dreams of becoming an actor one day and buying his mother, Patricia, a mansion.

As Miss Gwen listens to Patrick, she shuts her eyes and smiles. This is why she can't quit now.

Too many kids are still out there, busting with hidden treasure. And she believes fiercely that no talent is worth a lick unless you're sharing it with others. It's her job to find those gifts and teach their owners how to share them.

"If you don't point them in the right direction, you can count on the devil stepping in and doing his business," Miss Gwen says. "So you grab them by the hand, you tell them you love them, you care about them. Every single one matters."