Diane Delk

DELK Diane Dawson Delk, our beloved wife, mother, sister, teacher and friend, passed away unexpectedly on December 21, 2010.Diane was born in San Antonio, Texas, on March 11, 1951. She was adored by her parents, Joseph Turner Dawson and Melba Bruno Dawson, and by her little sister, Roslyn Randolph Dawson. The family lived in Corpus Christi, Texas, until Diane was 2 ' years old, and then moved to Denver, Colorado. From the age of three, Diane was a musical prodigy, with a boundless talent matched only by her boundless energy. She excelled at piano through her elementary school years, and when the family returned to Corpus Christi in 1963, she began study with Mrs. Margaret Roberts, who empowered Diane to explore the breadth of her musical ability. Diane graduated from King High School in Corpus Christi in 1969, and went on to Baylor University where she earned a Bachelors degree, cum laude, in Piano Performance. She was married to Paul Norman Davis in 1972 while both were students at Baylor, and they proceeded together to graduate school in Nashville, Tennessee, where Diane studied piano performance at George Peabody College for Teachers. She appeared as soloist with the Corpus Christi, Centex, Baylor and Nashville Symphonies and was twice awarded Honorable Mention in the prestigious Shreveport Symphony International Young Artist Competition. Following graduate studies, Diane moved to Corpus Christi, where she began work as a full-time piano teacher and had three wonderful sons: Colin Dawson Davis, born in 1974; Brian Sanders Davis, born in 1979; and Justin Randolph Davis, born in 1980. She met and married her cherished husband Thomas Michael Delk while living with her boys in Corpus Christi. Diane and Tom put a lifetime of love and adventure into their 26 years together, traveling the mountains and deserts of the American West in their camper or cruising in Alaska, Europe, the Caribbean and Mexico. At the time of her death, Diane was teaching piano, class piano and piano pedagogy workshops at Lone Star College-Montgomery, Texas. She also maintained a large private studio in Conroe and taught in Leon, Guanajuato, Mexico. In Leon, she founded the Fine Arts School at the Imagina Biblioteca Infantil, which provides extremely economically deprived children with private and group lessons in piano, strings and ballet. The piano students at The Imagina School have become a part of Music Link Foundation and have successfully performed two years for the National Guild Examinations. The success of the program has been documented in an article in the American Music Teacher professional journal of MTNA by Dr. Leslie Spotz of Tarleton State University, titled "The Mexico Miracle". In addition to these activities, Diane was on the faculty of the Sam Houston State University Summer Piano Camp in July, 2007.Diane was serving as President of the Texas Music Teachers Association, and was very involved for many years with the Conroe and Cypress Creek Music Teachers Associations. She held Music Teachers National Association Certification and was a Faculty Member of the American College of Musicians, where she also held certification. She was awarded the Piano Guild Hall of Fame in 1996.Diane was the faculty co-sponsor for the Lone Star College-Montgomery Collegiate Chapter of the Music Teachers National Association (MC-MTNA). In MTNA, she served for six years from 1999 to 2005 as the National Junior Performance Competitions Coordinator, and served annually as a National Piano Guild judge as well as judging for Music Teachers Association and National Federation of Music Clubs festivals and competitions.Diane is survived by her husband Tom; her sons, their wives and her grandchildren, Colin, Mandy and Grace Davis; Brian, Ashlei and Dawson Davis; and Justin, Kasey and Audrey Davis; her sister Roslyn and her husband Rex Thompson; her namesake and niece Diane Elizabeth Hartenstein and nephew Stephen Dawson Hartenstein; devoted in-laws, cousins and friends; and hundreds upon hundreds of students across the country and in Mexico whose lives she touched with her gifts.Services will be held at 2:00 p.m. on Monday, December 27, 2010, at the First Baptist Church in Conroe, Texas, 600 North Main Street. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that contributions be made in Diane's precious memory to the Texas Music Teachers Association, 1106 Clayton Lane, Suite 240 West, Austin, Texas, 78723, or to the Conroe Music Teachers Association, the First Baptist Church of Conroe's Encouragers Class Mission Fund, the Red Cross, the Salvation Army or the Montgomery County Humane Society.