The tributes filled social media on Monday after the death of a beloved Springfield music teacher and the revered matriarch of a musically gifted Ozarks family.
Consuelo Lane Bilyeu, known to her friends as Connie, was 78 years old. She died shortly before 2 a.m. on Monday from complications from COVID-19.
Bilyeu, a gifted singer, grew up performing in church and with the gospel group called the Waymakers.
She taught vocal music for over 30 years in Springfield, starting at Pipkin Middle School. She taught at Central High School in the 1970s, then joined Kickapoo High School in 1980.
Bilyeu retired from Kickapoo in 1998, but continued to be a pianist and co-director of music at South Haven Baptist Church – with her husband Bob Bilyeu, also a retired Springfield educator – for many years.
Their sons, Jody and Mark, formed the Ozarks Big Smith family group along with their cousins. The in-demand group has released numerous albums and was featured in the documentary “Homemade Hillbilly Jam”.
Creek Rocks guitarist and singer Mark Bilyeu shared a recording of his mother singing with the Waymakers on Facebook in the hopes it would comfort those who loved him.
“Her relatives couldn’t be with her when she died, but she died with the promise of a happy reunion with those who have left before,” he wrote.
Alberta Smith, choir director at Greenwood Laboratory School, crossed paths from Bilyeu to Pipkin, but it was a meeting in Central that changed her life.
“At the end of my sophomore year I sang for the theater banquet and she performed for me and informed me at that point that I was going to be in choir next year,” he said. she declared. “She’s done that a lot. She’d tell you ‘This is what you’re going to do.'”
For the next two years, Smith was part of the Bilyeu choir. The two have become close friends. Smith, former Springfield Teacher of the Year, followed in Bilyeu’s footsteps and taught vocal music at Central.
“She was so brilliant and talented, but so nonchalant in it all that you just assumed it was normal. You only realize later, when you have a few years on you, how amazing it was,” she declared. .
Smith recalled a conversation she had with Bilyeu during her senior year of high school. She wanted to go to college but hadn’t yet gained the confidence to go.
“She just told me this line: ‘If you want to do this, I think you can.’ And what she meant by that was, ‘If you want to do that, if you want to teach music, I think you can,’ ”Smith recalls. “In that sentence, she changed the direction of my life and the rest is history. That’s all it took for me to believe I could do it.”
Smith, who has remained close to the family, said Bilyeu was the encouraging voice of many students.
Bilyeu, who graduated from Spokane High School in 1960, holds a bachelor’s degree from Missouri State University and completed his graduate studies at the University of Colorado.
Over the course of her long career as a teacher, Bilyeu’s choirs have been amazed on several occasions at musical conventions in Missouri and the multi-state region. For 21 consecutive years, its choirs have received a unique rating – the highest – among other major ensembles in the state.
Almost 100 Bilyeu students have been named to the Missouri All-State Honors Choir and she set a state record by having the more students score, the highest, in district contests in a single year.
“She has had many crazy and talented kids over the years who adored her and felt the same,” she said. “I think I pushed myself so hard because I expected to be like her. She was amazing.”
Smith added, “She will be remembered as a mentor.”
Brett Miller, musician and educator, said Bilyeu was widely known and loved.
“She will be sadly missed by a multitude of people. She has led thousands of high school singers at Kickapoo High School, including Brad Pitt, and worked with countless number of church choirs,” he wrote on Facebook. “A lot of people knew Connie better than I did, but we all felt we had a special bond with her.”
Miller and his wife, Betsy, went to the church where Bilyeu played the piano and got to know the whole Bilyeu family. The couple later joined them for Connie’s birthday party over the summer in Bull Creek.
Miller said the musicians gathered in the evening and remembered the first time Bilyeu had called him to sing.
“I got together and played the first song I wrote, ‘Shaken, Not Broken’. Before I finished, there was a standing bass, lead guitar parts and mandolin accompanying me, and the choruses included a four-part harmony. And I knew it was heaven, ”Miller recalls. “I probably didn’t do very well, but Connie still responded with a huge ovation. She was a demanding director, but if you were one of her singers, she was your biggest fan.”
The extended Bilyeu family has been involved in Ozarks music for decades. Connie’s late brother Tommy performed with the Baldknobbers musical show in Branson.
In a Facebook post, Joel Bilyeu said his grandmother struggled with Alzheimer’s disease for many years, but that didn’t make it easy to ‘let go’. He described her as a “musical virtuoso”, but noted that she was humble and down to earth about her skills.
He remembers practicing songs and asking his grandmother, who accompanied him on the piano, to change the key. He said she would make a note on the sheet music and nail the song, in the new key, every time. It wasn’t until later that he realized that not everyone had this skill.
“It says a lot that in all the years that she had taught me to sing, she never once drew attention to the scarcity of her talents. It was always just about a grandmother doing grandma things, ”he said.
“This should tell you how amazing my Maw Maw was to me. Not only did she eat sleep and breathe piano music to the point where she could play whatever you put in her in any key you asked, but she was so humble about it that I didn’t know how amazing it was until I didn’t have her anymore. “
Honor the life of Bilyeu
Due to COVID-19, a private cemetery service has been scheduled. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to the Connie Bilyeu Scholarship through the Springfield Public Schools Foundation.
To donate to the scholarship, go to https://www.supportsps.org/donate/ and write Connie Bilyeu in the “donation designation” box.
Claudette Riley is the News-Leader educational journalist. Email news tips to [email protected].