rainbow.

Way up high is the land that I heard of once and a lullaby some where.

The house sits closer to the end of a dead end road than to the end of the rainbow.

But the lady who lives inside has helped pave a path to success for generations of Tulsa's schoolchildren.

Really do.

Inez Black is an old woman now, but her fingers can still dance across a piano keyboard, instinctively finding the notes to one of her favorite songs, Somewhere Over the Rainbow, read the lyrics.

Skies are blue and the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.

An inspirational message as important today as when she first heard it almost 65 years ago.

Those the things that help people to grow inside, to have self-esteem, to feel good about themselves, to participate, to give, to the community, you know, the arts is a way of expressing you.

If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow while walk under us.

Mom, mother was a music teacher, and she played for the church, and I was just.

Music was just in the home.

It was just a natural part of my growing up.

Almost like breathing.

And of course, becoming a teacher.

The easiest thing for me to get a job in of course, was music, because music teachers were needed so much, in school.

And the key here for Cheerful Spring, they don't tell me I don't remember that stuff.

Haha.

That was 30 something years ago.

And Chuck sizzle hasn't missed a beat yet.

After high school and college, he went on to a lengthy career in commercials and on Broadway in New York.

Now he's back home in Tulsa, running the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame and renewing acquaintances with former classmates like Hall of Famer Pat Moore and their music teacher and mentor, Inez Black.

You see what you did, Mrs.

Black?

When I went from, OU to New York City.

Oh, I know.

Everyone asks me, are you from Juilliard?

Are you from performing arts?

I said, no, I'm from Tulsa, Oklahoma.

And of course we just fall out laughing like Tulsa, Oklahoma, the Cowboys and Indians.

I said, yes, there are cowboys and Indians there, but there's also culture.

And I got my, training at the Washington High School and the University of Oklahoma switcheroo, you know, not Juilliard.

Mrs.

Black prepared us.

I mean, literally prepared us as if we were in college already.

That, my satin dolls.

Yeah.

Tulsa's Booker T Washington High School isn't the only place where Inez Black educated students, but it is the one she remembers most fondly.

Oh, we had such an exciting program.

We did so many things.

The 50s and 60s were glory days in these halls.

Talented students, extraordinary teachers.

The music program was as celebrated as the athletic program.

Students could earn letters for being in the choir.

The 11th and 12th graders had to audition and, they were all excited.

It's like having been picked for the football team.

They were picked to be in the choir.

And kids like to know that they have achieved something, from who they are, what they can do.

It was a very thrilling, exciting time for us as young people to learn and be educated.

And we were willing to learn, and we wanted to learn, and we were just excited about the next day's activities.

It was very rewarding.

For me, I developed a close relationship with the students, and I was able to kind of guide them in, certain directions.

Lead.

She also pushed them, that's the South and prodded them.

Me I'll do it again.

And pestered into achieving successes that astounded them.

Oh, that's very good.

When she coached me and when I sang that first note and I was like, I was really shocked.

She was like, that's right, Ms.

Tammi.

I was just like, oh my God.

It was a shock to me because I didn't know what I had.

I really didn't, and she really pulled it out of me and I thank God for that.

I really do.

Long after high school, Tammy Chaney, now working on a career in gospel music, has come back to the comfortable house in North Tulsa.

For some more advice.

And I thought I was as Miss Black to kind of give me some feedback on my breathing, my control, because, you know, when you haven't done in a while, you kind of tend to lose that edge a little bit.

But, it wasn't too bad.

She said.

It wasn't too bad.

And so there are some things I still remember in the back of my head.

I can hear us saying that, Miss Tammy, you know that's not right.

I said, yes, ma'am.

Yes, ma'am.

They're building a new Washington High School in Tulsa.

It will have the latest gadgets, the newest technology.

It will not have Inez Black.

And because of state budget cuts, it won't have near the music program.

The old building did.

I think it was a sad day because music is so important in the development.

It's vital for the development of the students.

They learn to express themselves better, and they learn that they are capable of doing something.

Just like Chuck Cecil and Pat Moore learned four decades ago when they were together the first time singing the Washington alma mater and making musical memories that would last a lifetime.

It was challenging, and that's what we wanted.

That's what we needed.

And, we love that kind of opportunity.

And Mrs.

Black provided that.

And certainly I would consider her one of the, music education icons in Oklahoma.

A wizard, if you will, who helped turn some of the dead end streets of Tulsa into yellow brick roads.

This white house.

Because we heard, because of the wonderful things you got to wear out to see the Wonderful Wizard of Oz.