Sherry Stidfole Bids Farewell To Teaching After 42 Years

By Jayne Keedle

Sherry Stidfole has been teaching music in Waterford elementary schools since 1970 but, last night, she took her final bow. After 42 years, Mrs. Stidfole—who was named Connecticut Elementary Music Teacher of the Year in 2004—is retiring. 

"I love teaching and it's really hard to stop," said Mrs. Stidfole, a resident of New London. "To hear a class of 4th graders singing—I'm going to miss that sound so much."

But at 69, she said, "I've got multiple kids saying, 'You taught my grandfather.'" And that's the kind of comment, she added, that makes a person feel as if it might be time to pass the baton to someone younger. 

During a Thursday concert at Waterford High School, Music Director Tim Fioravanti said if Mrs. Stidfole could teach for another 40 years he'd be "a happy camper." She makes his job so much easier, he said, "because she gets her students all fired up about music, all fired up, and they remember her."

Indeed, that was very clear as the high school auditorium filled up with her students, past and present, who came to wish her well and sent her off with a standing ovation. 

At Mrs. Stidfole's invitation, a number of them also joined her on stage for one final song—the very appropriately titled American folk song, "I'm going home on a cloud."

This won't be the last chance you'll have to see Stidfole, however. She continues to play every month with John "Woody" Wood, one of the original members of a group she formed with fellow teachers at Southwest School. 

The band, now known as "The Crew," plays regularly in Hootenannies in New London to raise money for the New London Breakfasts program and the Community Meal Center.

The band will next appear with several other musicians at the "Hoot for Hunger" event scheduled for 6 p.m. on Friday at Dickson's Tavern.