With the school year having come to a close, the ConVal School District is saying goodbye to one of its most beloved teachers, Ray Sweeney.

Sweeney grew up in Antrim, where he took piano lessons from Izi Nichols. From then on, music has always been his calling.

“I knew it even when I was in high school and I knew even when I went to Plymouth that I was going to be a music major,” he says. “I just didn’t know exactly what it would be.”

After he received his degree in music performance from Plymouth State University, Sweeney went on to play in the band while stationed at West Point and attend Columbia to get a master’s in music education.

“But I came within two credits of my degree. While I was at Columbia, I was moonlighting, playing piano just off Broadway, and ... there was my picture in the paper. I had this great N.Y. Times review and I thought ‘Hey this is for me, I don’t care about that degree’ and so I didn’t finish my degree,” he says.

For the next 15 years, Sweeney held various jobs in “showbiz,” which included working, writing and traveling with the USO, working for the American Theater Wing, teaching at a school for the arts in New York City and working for hospital audiences. Even while working in New York City, Sweeney remained involved with his roots, working with Andy’s Summer Playhouse, Peterborough Players and Antrim Players, just to name a few. After he had returned to Columbia to obtain his master’s in education, he returned to New Hampshire.

When Sweeney started teaching at ConVal in 1995, the music department was far different and much smaller. There were about 30 kids in chorus, and even then it was split between two blocks. By the next year, there were 120 students in chorus, a figure that he attributes to ConVal switching to block scheduling and to his previous involvement in the community.

Sweeney’s former students have high praise for their high school teacher.

“Even though there were often over 100 students in chorus at one time, he never treated us like we were expendable. Every voice mattered” says Katelyn Manfre, a recent NYU grad in journalism and theater.

“He was someone who taught us how to love and appreciate music and find the absolute joy in it,” says Katie Rolph, an Emerson College grad in musical theater. “And that goes for everyone. Whether you had any talent or not, he seemed to think everyone deserved a chance and in class would reward hard work and commitment to the love of music, not necessarily skill.”

Several years ago, he helped found a scholarship in the name of his piano teacher and mentor, Izi Nichols.

“My biggest influence was Izi Nichols. Right from the very beginning she had a profound impact on how I thought about music,” said Sweeney.

This is one way for Sweeney and the Nichols family to give back to the community.

After 15 years of teaching music at ConVal, Sweeney retired when the school year ended, but he plans to remain active in the community.

“Music will always be a part of my life, and I’m really too young to do nothing” he jokes.

Piper Goodeve, one of his earliest students at ConVal, summarizes how most students feel about Sweeney.

“I felt like I was part of something great when I worked with him, like the work was really important and it was of value. I think that when kids have a teacher that they want to do well for, that it makes them think outside of themselves, to see more than just their part in something, and really embrace the big picture.”

And Sweeney enjoys seeing former students in the audience when he conducts a show.

“One of the best feelings is when you’re at a concert and all these kids from the past are there,” he says. “It makes you realize that you must have touched their lives in an important way.”

Michelle Boulé, a summer intern at the Ledger-Transcript, is a ConVal graduate who attends Ithaca College, where she is majoring in photography. She participated in chorus, under the direction of Ray Sweeney, throughout her four years at ConVal.