Robert Lee Kidd III
Featured Educator

Robert Lee Kidd III teaches music at Eisenhower Elementary School in Norman, Oklahoma. He is director of the Eisenhower Concert Chorus, an elective ensemble of seventy 4th and 5th grade students. His educational preparation includes the Choral Music Experience artist-teacher diploma, bachelor and master of music education degrees (B.M.E.; M.M.E.) from The University of Oklahoma, and the doctor of education in music education degree (Ed.D.) from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. Before his current teaching position, Dr. Kidd was an instructor of instrumental music, secondary choral music, and supervisor of music in the Norman Public Schools; assistant director of bands and instructor of music at the University of Pittsburgh; assistant professor of music and education at Murray (KY) State University; and JDR3rd Fund Administrative Fellow in Arts in Education with the Oklahoma State Department of Education.

Named as Norman Public Schools Teacher of the Year in 1988, Dr. Kidd was chosen to participate in the Metropolitan Opera Guild Creating Original Opera Teacher Workshop Series on two occasions. He served as a member of the advisory committee of the National Endowment for the Arts which published Toward Civilization (1988), a report on arts education in America, and was chosen to travel with several other Norman teachers to Japan to participate in a cultural exchange sponsored by Hitachi Computer Products (America), Inc. In April 1997, he received the Oklahoma Medal for Excellence in Teaching at the Elementary Level from the Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence. Dr. Kidd has served as elementary division vice president of the Oklahoma Music Educators Association and founding chair of OMEA's Circle The State With Song, a statewide children's choral festival, and the All-OMEA Children's Chorus. In 1999, he was inducted into the OMEA Hall Of Fame. He has been elementary representative on the executive board of the Oklahoma Choral Directors Association and is currently president of the board of Children's Arts Network. In November 2001, Dr. Kidd received a Governor's Arts Award for Arts and Education from the Oklahoma Arts Council, and in August 2002, he was inducted into the Oklahoma Educators Hall Of Fame.

Dr. Kidd has memberships with Phi Delta Kappa (professional education organization), National Education Association, Oklahoma Education Association, The National Association for Music Education, American Choral Directors Association, Oklahoma Choral Directors Association, International Trombone Association, College Music Society, Organization of American Kodály Educators, Oklahoma Kodály Educators, American Orff-Schulwerk Association, Oklahoma Orff Chapter, and Dance and the Child International.