QCEA Celebrates Retirees: Jonathan Lechner
As we wrap up the school year, since we can't celebrate in person, QCEA wants to virtually celebrate all of our retirees. We thank them for their years of dedication and service, and we wish them all the best in retirement!
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| Photo courtesy of PawPrints |
Last Teaching Assignment: Director of Vocal Music, QCHS
Number of Years in Education: 40
Number of Years Teaching in Quakertown: 32
Which building(s) have you worked in?
Senior High, Haycock Elementary
What will you miss the most about teaching?
What will you miss the least about teaching?
What is your happiest memory from your time in Quakertown?
What are your retirement plans?
______________________________________
Thanks for the memories.
This next section of the blog post includes some fond memories shared by colleagues.
I met Jonathan Lechner my first year teaching. My colleague and good friend (QCSD recently retired) Janet Bassett had a daughter and son in his production of The Goose Girl, and I wanted to see it. At the end of the show, out walks this tall, salt and pepper (more pepper than salt in those days) haired, golden voiced man thanking us for attending. I was enthralled by the level of performance he developed in those students. It was phenomenal! Over the next few years, I shared students in my program with him, and found him a formidable opponent when I needed to pull students from one of his rehearsals for one of my programs. Although I respected his work, I found dealing with him to be difficult. That changed one summer afternoon. I had spent the day cleaning the library, dirty from moving and arranging books after the library had been moved from the back of the high school to its current location in the front. Leaving the building, I saw a man clad in black leather start his motorcycle in the front parking lot. Confused, I couldn't make out who it could possibly be. Which high school teacher rode a motorcycle? The man looked at me, and I recognized part of the pompadour sticking out of the helmet - Jonathan Lechner? The next day, he was in the library making photocopies and I said, "This may seem an odd question Jonathan, but do you ride a motorcycle?" He looked at me and replied simply, "Yes." "I wouldn't have thought you the type," I replied. To which he responded, "There is much you don't know about me." And he was right. But that conversation sparked a wonderful collegial relationship that would come to define much of my time at the high school. 
Through him I learned how to produce and direct a musical, costume a cast, work a lighting board, build a theater program, and work a cherry-picker to hang backdrops the day of dress rehearsals. He also taught me how to navigate the difficult position of moving a production forward when the odds (and often administration) were working against you. He taught me how to do so with self-confidence and grace, always erring on the side of what was best for kids. Anyone who has worked closely with Jonathan knows that the magisterial, pompous countenance of that man in a tuxedo leading the choir belies the warm hearted, somewhat shy individual who has dedicated his life to helping singers find their inner voice. He has done the same for me, not in singing, but in teaching and working with young adults. I am so proud and overjoyed to have been his colleague, and extremely lucky to call him a friend.
What will you miss the most about teaching?
The kids, the music, making music with the kids
What will you miss the least about teaching?
Teacher in-service, Panorama, Canvas
What is your happiest memory from your time in Quakertown?
Taking the Varsity Singers on the road, watching the kids receive applause after their concerts and musicals, traveling with the kids on choir tours, singing every day with the kids.
What are your retirement plans?
Get enough sleep, take care of the things that I have been neglecting around the house, restore two antique motorcycles, enjoy being with my family.
______________________________________
Thanks for the memories.
This next section of the blog post includes some fond memories shared by colleagues.
Christmas caroling on our trombones around Quakertown in '89 or '90. Alan Shughart, Jonathan, Rich Baringer & me. We stopped at school board members, Dr. Shelly & Zane Stauffer, homes and many others. Lots of laughs and fun time performing for 3 hours. In '91, the music faculty performed a musical version of the "Cinderella story". Almost the entire music staff participated in front of a packed auditorium. Ass't Supt, Bill Kirk was the narrator. Jonathan may have the video of it.
- Michael Boyd
Jonathan and I performed at many local churches and weddings in the late 1980s so we first met after a phone call asking me to accompany his singing. About that same time, he envisioned developing a unit pay position for an accompanist coach position and upon approval from the district, he asked me to provide guidance to his student accompanists. He also asked me to accompany the high school Broadway shows. One evening, we were marking our scores to cut the length of the show’s overall time. My eldest son entered the room and announced, “My head is going to explode.” That is child-speak for a rapidly rising fever and sure enough his body temperature was 105.2. Normally Jonathan is the take-charge person but on this occasion I was giving the orders. This had happened several times before so I acted swiftly. Jonathan was to stand guard at the bathroom door and not let my son drown in the bathtub as the tepid water would start to bring down the temperature. I was calling the pediatrician in another room (the dark ages before portable or cell phones) and every mother knows not to leave a child unattended in the bathtub especially when a seizure was impending. We never spoke of the event again but apparently this did not frighten him away because over the next ten years we collaborated together on concerts, tours and shows until I resigned from that post in 1997. I have known many of the former QCSD high school directors, Henrietta Johnson, Richard Stanislaw, Danny Tuck, and Steve Rivera, and it was quite a legacy to follow but Jonathan surpassed them all in “time-served” and quality of the program. We continued as colleagues until 2016 and it is my honor to still call him my friend. Best wishes, Jonathan!
- Faith Zimmerman
I worked in the Quakertown School District as a colleague of Jonathan’s for 25 years. After I retired I spent 2 years as a vocal coach as part of his choral program. What a wonderful 2 years, preparing students for concerts, spaghetti dinners, “Thoroughly Modern Millie”, the choir tour, voice recitals and performances at Westminster Choir College. I hope that the students who have had the opportunity to study with Jon have come to understand how fortunate they were to be a part of his excellent choral program, and to appreciate the personal sacrifices he made for them, the opportunities that he found a way to provide, and his superior talent as both a musician and a teacher. Whoever takes his place has big shoes to fill!!
- Jane Rivera
I met Jonathan Lechner my first year teaching. My colleague and good friend (QCSD recently retired) Janet Bassett had a daughter and son in his production of The Goose Girl, and I wanted to see it. At the end of the show, out walks this tall, salt and pepper (more pepper than salt in those days) haired, golden voiced man thanking us for attending. I was enthralled by the level of performance he developed in those students. It was phenomenal! Over the next few years, I shared students in my program with him, and found him a formidable opponent when I needed to pull students from one of his rehearsals for one of my programs. Although I respected his work, I found dealing with him to be difficult. That changed one summer afternoon. I had spent the day cleaning the library, dirty from moving and arranging books after the library had been moved from the back of the high school to its current location in the front. Leaving the building, I saw a man clad in black leather start his motorcycle in the front parking lot. Confused, I couldn't make out who it could possibly be. Which high school teacher rode a motorcycle? The man looked at me, and I recognized part of the pompadour sticking out of the helmet - Jonathan Lechner? The next day, he was in the library making photocopies and I said, "This may seem an odd question Jonathan, but do you ride a motorcycle?" He looked at me and replied simply, "Yes." "I wouldn't have thought you the type," I replied. To which he responded, "There is much you don't know about me." And he was right. But that conversation sparked a wonderful collegial relationship that would come to define much of my time at the high school. 
Through him I learned how to produce and direct a musical, costume a cast, work a lighting board, build a theater program, and work a cherry-picker to hang backdrops the day of dress rehearsals. He also taught me how to navigate the difficult position of moving a production forward when the odds (and often administration) were working against you. He taught me how to do so with self-confidence and grace, always erring on the side of what was best for kids. Anyone who has worked closely with Jonathan knows that the magisterial, pompous countenance of that man in a tuxedo leading the choir belies the warm hearted, somewhat shy individual who has dedicated his life to helping singers find their inner voice. He has done the same for me, not in singing, but in teaching and working with young adults. I am so proud and overjoyed to have been his colleague, and extremely lucky to call him a friend.- Bekci Kelly
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