And now, a new musical "movement" is beginning: Waters will retire from Penny Road Elementary at the end of the school year.

After teaching at Wake Christian Academy, Briarcliff, Knightdale, Lockhart, Baucom, Lincoln Heights, Vance and Willow Springs, Waters has taught at Penny Road Elementary since it opened in 1989.

While she will miss her students, she looks forward to her granddaughter's birth in July and a new home she is building in the mountains.

Q: You put on a spring play with your drama students and even wrote the play yourself. How do you come up with your ideas? I get most of my ideas from library books - I focus on a certain country and often build around a folk tale. Something usually triggers my interest.

I've got all kinds of music CD resources, but most of the time I write the play. By the second week of Christmas vacation I start writing. And if it doesn't gel by then, I'm in trouble...

One year, we did a Chinese play based on Ma Liang and the Magic Paintbrush. A parent taught Chinese dancing, and we made a big dragon so we could do a dragon dance. One year, we did the Legend of the Blue Bonnet.

It was Indian, and I wanted it to be authentic, so we worked with a video to get the dance just right. I really enjoyed a play based on the adventures of Lewis and Clark - we did it for the 200th anniversary.

I did a lot of research of where the trail led them, and we did a PowerPoint presentation and showed how each Native American tribe interacted with the explorers.

Q: What is your students' favorite part of music class over your 34 years of teaching? I think it has to be fourth-grade North Carolina music. We follow the fourth grade social studies curriculum and "travel" through the state.

Music is everything. It connects to everything and it especially connects to history.

When we visit the mountains, we use dulcimers and do square dancing. We study the Cherokee Indians and their culture.

For the coast, we do lighthouses and Blackbeard. I used to have each class learn facts about Blackbeard, and then as a class, we would write a poem, and then I would set it to music.

I have many years' worth of Blackbeard songs - from hilarious to scary.

For the Piedmont, we study the Civil War - there were so many songs - and we talk about which side sang each one. We "take a trip" to Gettysburg and see slides of what we're talking about.

We study Stephen Foster and minstrel music. And we talk about spirituals, the Underground Railroad and Emancipation. You open up the history of America. The students are so eager; I love it.

Q: What will you miss the most about your students when you retire? Everything. I can't imagine not getting up and coming to school. I'm the twelfth child in my family, and I grew up with brothers, so I will miss hugging the kids and horsing around.

I will miss getting to know more about them outside the classroom setting ... some of my students have trouble getting transportation for after-school rehearsals, so if they sign up, I offer to take them home. I learn so much.

I will miss telling little stories and using my props - I have props for everything.

Q: I heard that you write a lot of music. What types of music do you write? Every time I've written something, there's a need but no song written for it - like a Johnny Appleseed song or a Mother's Day song.

We have a neat program here at school. The keyboard will print out whatever I play on staff paper. I have also written music for my church [Waters is still on staff at Highland Baptist Church].

I'm already pulling some of my songs into a notebook for my granddaughter to learn. And I want to go to the public library and share my songs along with the books that inspired them. I'm hoping I can also spend time playing the piano in nursing homes.

I am so thankful for this part of my life. I have been very fortunate.