Jackie Maye conducts the Gardnerville Elementary School Choir on April 5, 1979. R-C File Photo
A memorial service is 1-3 p.m. Saturday at Gardnerville’s Carson Valley United Methodist Church for Jacquelynn “Jackie” Geiffert Maye, 77, who died Feb. 29 at her home in Florida.
It has been almost a half century since Maye’s name first appeared in the pages of The Record-Courier.
A Nov. 28, 1974, story said she accompanied a busload of her sixth-grade music students to the Douglas junior and senior high school choirs performance in Reno.
She retired from teaching in Douglas County schools after 27 years, according to a front page Jan. 27, 2001, R-C story written by Linda Hiller.
She told Hiller she started teaching at Gardnerville Elementary School in 1973 with only her accordion as accompaniment.
“I loved the earlier concerts where I could use multimedia and the teachers — we would pack them in for the concerts,” she said.
She was named Douglas County Teacher of the Year in 1982.
After she retired, she performed a Chautauqua as “Mozart and Me,” dressing up and performing as the famous composer, entertaining people while educating them about his work.
Maye remained active in the arts up to the very end, writing a song for “Think First,” and assembling an ensemble of seniors to perform and video record it just a few months before her death.
Born in White Plains, N.Y. she received her master’s degree in music education from State University of New York Fredonia in 1970. She began teaching at Stewart Indian School in Carson City.
