Working: choir teacher

By HANNAH BESSO
UNLEASHED STAFF
Four years, four choirs and one African drumming class.
That could sum up choir teacher Nichola Blink’s career so far at Toppenish High School. And yet, she’s done so much more in her short time there. Many say it’s easy to see the difference she has made.
“You should have heard what it was like before she came. It was a little embarrassing,” says Arlee Volz, 65, the piano accompanist for Blink’s school choirs. “But now, she directs kids, she talks to kids, she says she’ll do anything to help them get into college and do whatever they want to do.”
It’s been that way since her first day on the job, according to superintendent Steve Myers.

“On the first day that she began teaching choir she had an unbelievable connection with the students,” he says. “In just a short period of time, the quality of the musical performance has really improved.”
Blink’s path to get here included many stops. Between kindergarten and her senior year of high school, she moved 18 times.
“Sometimes that was schools, houses or countries,” says Blink, who was born in England but has been to the Middle East, Canada and, of course, the U.S.
She graduated from high school in Oregon, went to Oberlin College in Ohio, and got a postgraduate degree at the Cincinnati Conservatory.
Prior to teaching in Toppenish, Blink, who lives in Yakima, taught at a charter school in Toledo, Ohio, while also singing opera.
At the charter school, geared to students who had been kicked out of the public school system, “I saw how the arts program really made an impact on them,” Blink says. “So I decided to go to (the University of Washington) to get a more international program. I wanted to start a program from the bottom up … somewhere they would let me do it my way, and Toppenish was open to it.”
Blink says that although she likes singing opera, she finds teaching more rewarding.
“When I sang opera, it was very fulfilling and I loved it, but it was all about me,” Blink says. “Whereas when I taught, I could see how music could change young people’s lives, and it was a way to give back that was much more fulfilling.”
What do her students have to say?
“She would help me on a lot of things, like technicality and the proper way to sing, and she’s also taught me how you can command the stage and how you have to go out there and have confidence,” says Emmanuel Rodriguez, a 15-year-old sophomore in Blink’s elite choir.
“She really has a huge passion for the students and to be able to teach them. She polishes the students until they shine,” says Adrianna Garza, a 17-year-old senior in Blink’s elite and treble choirs.
“I think what I like most about Mrs. Blink is that in her choir classes she makes sure that you understand that she means business. You have to follow her rules, and yet you’re having fun,” says 18-year old senior Sarah Story, who is a peer tutor for the beginners’ choir and is in Blink’s elite, treble and audition choirs.
“She’s one of the people I want to be like when I get older,” Story says. “She lets you know that she cares about you and not just her program. She cares about you and if you succeed.”
During her tenure, Blink has transformed the Toppenish High School choir from a group of about a dozen students to a program with more than 200 students in five different music classes, including an African drumming class.

To encourage more students to join choir, she worked out with the advanced weight-lifting team and ran with the football and cross-country teams, talking up her program.
“I did that because I wanted them to see that you should try new things even if you’re not sure that you’ll be good at them,” Blink says. “So they saw me struggle and keep trying, and I got better. And then I brought my choir to sing at the football games and I had (the football team) come join choir. So my first year I had 15 students, and by my third year I had 243. And I’ll have more this year.”
Blink likes to listen to jazz, Latin, folk and world music.
“I love music that has lyrics,” she says. “It doesn’t have to be English. Being a singer, I definitely love the human voice.”
Her husband is a teacher, too. David Blink is the director of Instrumental Music and Jazz Studies at Yakima Valley Community College.
“It is our lives,” he says of music. “Our students, in a way, are like our children.”
Says Volz, “She really believes in those kids. She doesn’t let them get by with anything but the best.”
Blink likes to keep the focus on her students.
“I love teaching because it’s constantly challenging me to be a better musician, be compassionate, and think outside the box,” she says.
“My students are probably my biggest inspiration, seeing them strive to overcome obstacles and achieve dreams.”
Her work has impressed the superintendent.
“She has been magnificent,” Myers says. “What it does show is that if you have the talent and skills as a teacher, and you can relate to students, the sky is the limit. Our students are reaching for the stars.”

—  Hannah Besso is a member of the Yakima Herald-Republic’s Unleashed team. She attends Davis High School.