Alan Cunningham is a musician and a dreamer. He loves his family and he loves his students, of which there have been thousands over the years of his teaching tenure. I am one of those lucky souls.

In 1982 I was a lost kid at Pomona High school. I had nothing to dream of and my home life was a ground zero affair. My father had just died in a drowning accident, leaving my mother to fend for us all. I walked into Mr. Cunningham’s choir class a nobody and quickly became a somebody. I found out that I could sing and Alan invested in my yearning to play the guitar, loaning me his own to play and encouraging my early efforts which must have sounded like picking a cat up with pliers. Through his kind tutelage and patience I was about to find confidence and sing louder and louder in more ways than musically. Each year between that first and 1985 (the year I graduated) I sang a self-written solo in the Christmas concert. He even let me direct the choir when they sang one of my songs.

It would be something extraordinary if helping save me was the only miracle this man had achieved but since my time in his classroom he has launched many other kids onto new frontiers of confidence. He teaches music in the Ottawa schools and puts on concerts that are one of a kind. This is because he writes the original songs that kids perform. It is sometimes easy to take for granted the brilliance that works beside us and teachers like Alan who bring their entire soul to work with them daily are sometimes not seen for what they really are. You cannot replace an Alan Cunningham, people like him come along once in a very long time and those who benefit from their presence never forget them. The shows and lights and sets are amazing and I can only hope that the Ottawa district knows what they have in this man.

His dream was to be a performer along the lines of John Denver or James Taylor and he has an amazing voice and  exceptional musical talent but the albums that he has produced have names like Joey, Stacy, Billy and Kevin Honeycutt. I will always owe this man for much of what I have become and if you ever get a chance to meet him, you will have met music and education royalty.