Music in their blood

Music and teaching both seem to run in the Campos family.

Elena Campos teaches beginning guitar at Ector Junior High School while her son Jose Campos helps the experienced guitar players get better in the room next door. Across town, her daughter Maria Elena Rimer spends her days teaching English at Nimitz Junior High School, using rhythm and pitch to help her ninth-grade students get a better grasp on grammar.

Music has always been a part of the Campos family’s life, and now they go out in the world to teach other people about it.

Maria Elena and Jose both agree it all started with their mother, Elena Campos. Campos has always loved music. As a 2-year-old, she would clamber onto a stool next to her big sister’s piano, pecking out melodies with her baby fingers.

She grew up in a musical family, and her two children, Maria Elena and Jose, were immersed in the world of music almost from birth.

Music was always playing in the house. The children were used to their mother singing in church or practicing the guitar or the piano.

“When we were growing up we were pretty poor, and we didn’t have things like cable television or things like that. Music was our soundtrack. Whether we were cleaning the house or doing homework, music was always there,” Maria Elena said.

Now, music is a part of all of their lives as all three work as teachers in the Ector County Independent School District.

Campos’ husband worked in the oil fields and money was always a little tight, even in the good years. When the oil boom went bust in the 1980s, lack of money drove Campos into the teaching field. Her children were attending St. Mary’s Catholic School, and Campos knew they wouldn’t have the money to pay tuition. She approached one of the nuns, asking if they could work something out to keep her children in the school.

The nun thought for a moment and asked Campos what her talents were.

“I told her I could sing, I could play the piano, I could play the guitar, and I knew something about art. They needed a music teacher and that’s how it started,” Campos said.

Campos taught her children’s music classes at school, and when they went home music was all around them.

Jose seemed to be a natural. He was playing the violin at the age of 3 and fell in love with guitar when he was in junior high.

“We always knew Jose would be into music. It was just so obvious. When he was a baby he even laughed in scales,” his older sister Maria Elena said.

After graduating from the Texas Tech College of Music, Jose settled into teaching at Ector Junior High. A few years later, his mother started teaching beginning guitar in the room next door to his.

Maria Elena studied cello for years, but the music seemed to have passed her by. It wasn’t until she became an English teacher that she realized there were some things that had seeped in.

She started using lyrics and songs to teach her students how to identify nouns and verbs. She started having them clap out the rhythm of the words as they read poetry aloud to emphasize the rhythm.

“It was kind of hard when I was a kid, because I always felt outside of this thing they had, but then I realized I was learning about this all the time. It was a really nice feeling,” Maria Elena said.

Both children credit their mother with having taught them to love music. Campos said music has been an important part of all of their lives.

“Music is everything. It makes life better because even when everything is bad and everything is going wrong, you still have the music,” Campos said.