Bio, 2014: Gayla Wagner Foster and Bart Foster
Because our lives have been entwined since the 9th grade, we are writing our bios together.
GAYLA: After high school graduation Gayla started her undergraduate work in piano performance and pedagogy at the University of Oklahoma, finished her Masters of Music there and transferred to University of Southern California in Los Angeles to begin work on her doctorate degree. She left USC to return to Stillwater in 1974 to marry her high school sweet heart, Bart Foster! Her first teaching position in 1974 was at C.E. Donart High School as a vocal music and theory teacher until 1978. Simultaneously, she started her piano studio and became the director of music at Highland Park United Methodist Church in Stillwater, where she remains today after 37 years.
When their 3 boys were a little older, Gayla continued her professional career as a Fine Arts Curriculum Specialist and Consultant for the Stillwater, Yukon, and Moore school districts until 1993 when she became an Oklahoma Artist-in-residence for the State Arts Council of Oklahoma. She also restarted her Doctor of Musical Arts degree, this time at OU and finished it in 1995. Upon graduation, she studied and performed piano in Graz, Austria during the summer.
In 1997 Gayla began a different professional phase in her new position as Director of Arts in Education at the State Department of Education in Oklahoma City, working with state-wide school districts to train teachers and principals in the arts. The commute to Oklahoma City continued from 2001-2004, when she became Vice President and Director of Programs for the Oklahoma Arts Institute, working in Oklahoma City and at Quartz Mountain, Ok. She left the Arts Institute in the fall of 2004 to return to working in Stillwater at Oklahoma State University, helping the Dean of the College of Education write the National Accreditation Report in Visual Arts Teacher Training. When the Dean asked her to remain in 2005 as professor to teach all the courses in Art Education, she agreed. Last year, 2013, Gayla was named Program Coordinator for Secondary Education, in addition to her teaching duties and supervising student teachers. January 2015 begins her 10th year at OSU where she loves her job!
BART: After high school graduation Bart started undergraduate work at OSU in veterinary medicine, while simultaneously being a member of the Oklahoma National Guard 145th Engineering Division and continuing to work at Ricker’s Auto Supply. He changed his undergraduate area of study to engineering and then ultimately to architecture. When he finished his Masters of Architecture degree in 1976, his thesis project was using solar energy in residential buildings. This led him to begin building his and Gayla’s new home in Stillwater, using passive and active solar collecting as the premise of the home. When the house was (mostly) finished in 1977, he started “Alternative Design”, an architectural design business employing several OSU architecture students. This expanded rapidly into the art, architectural, and engineering supply store. He sold the business in 1990 to become facilities manager and architect for the MerCruiser plant in Stillwater. When that plant was sold in 2013 to Belgian company, Asco Aerospace, Bart was asked to continue in the same position, where he remains today.
For 40 years, life for the Foster family has seen a balance of great happiness and great sorrow. We have lost 2 children to illness, Scott in 1982 and Jacob in 2008. Our remaining son, Matt, is a successful young man and has a 4 ½ year old daughter, who is the light of our lives. The house-that-Bart-built sits on a peaceful rural 8 acres and has grown to over 5000 square feet, with a new swimming pool in the backyard. It gives us pleasure to live in the place where our children grew up. This house has seen the happiness of birthday and graduation parties, Christmas celebrations, weddings and showers, as well as the sadness of funerals and deaths. As we grow older, we have decided to just A-I-P, Age-in-Place, with some minor redoes as they become necessary…like changing the downstairs bathroom into a wheelchair accessible one. We have spent too many years in this wonderful place to move. We remain lucky people!
©2009 Stillwater High School Class of 1964