Mike Horrocks named regional outstanding music educator

Music teacher Mike Horrocks, who has taught at Sunset Elementary in Airway Heights for his entire 16-year career, has been recognized as the 2022 Washington Music Educators Association’s Regional Outstanding Music Educator.

Horrocks was a local boy who graduated from Ferris High School and Eastern Washington University. He describes himself as a good student who always had the idea in his mind that he might want to be a teacher, but he had no interest in teaching subjects like math, history or science. “I had really great teachers in elementary school who I really looked up to,” he said.

When he was a junior in high school, he took pre-calculus. He struggled and worked hard, but failed the class. “I just could not wrap my head around it,” he said.

He signed up to take the class again, but by the second test it was clear that he hadn’t improved, so he asked his friends for suggestions on a class to switch to. They suggested he take choir and he was hooked. By his senior year he had made the select men’s choir at Ferris.

It was in choir that Horrocks realized what he wanted to teach – music. “It was just so much fun,” he said. “I got so much joy out of it.”

He got his teaching degree in K-12 music education and was applying for jobs as a high school choir teacher without any luck. That was at a time when teaching jobs were difficult to get in the Spokane area and Horrocks said there’s not a lot of turnover in choir teacher positions. “I didn’t think I was going to get a job locally,” he said.

He decided to expand his horizons and applied for the job at Sunset in the Cheney School District. He learned he had gotten the job with a phone call he received while driving back from a job interview in Kent, Washington.

Still, he figured he would take the job and, in a few years, apply for a high school choir position. But Horrocks fell in love again and now says he’s not going anywhere. “I could go wherever I want,” he said. “The thing that’s kept me here is, number one, I really enjoy the people I work with.”

Then, there are the students. About 70% of students at Sunset qualify for free or reduced lunch, Horrocks said, and most probably won’t have the opportunities a student from a more affluent family might have. “We’re all in this to try to make a difference and I feel like being here is a good way to accomplish that,” he said.

Personally, Horrocks felt like being an elementary school music teacher fit his personality. “I’m a goofy guy,” he said. “I’m just kind of a silly, snarky guy. I found that working with little kids and being the big kid in charge is so much fun.”

That’s not to say that every day is smooth sailing. “It’s a lot of hard work,” he said. “There’s definitely days when the gas tank is empty. This is really the thing that I love to do.”

Not only did taking choir in high school determine his future career, it also led him to his future family. He sat next to a girl named Alesha on a choir trip to Canada and the two hit it off. They’ve now been married for 16 years and have three children. “It’s funny, but failing at math in high school ended up being one of the most important turning points in my life,” he said. “I found the woman I love and a career that brings me so much joy and fulfillment.”

Horrocks said he was surprised to learn that he had been selected for the WMEA award. In fact, when he received the email announcing his win, he thought he was being pranked. He would later find out that a colleague had nominated him for the honor.

“It was really flattering,” he said. “She wrote a very nice email about me. Apparently, out of all the applications, they selected me from Northeast Washington.”

Horrocks said he in no way feels like an expert, despite his lengthy career in the classroom, and he has trouble seeing himself as someone to look up to. “I’m not used to getting that much attention,” he said. “I’m always focused on how can I get better?”