Using ‘what the good Lord gave’ him

SHS Choir Teacher Jon Brownell retires after nearly 40 years

By Soncirey Mitchell
Reader Staff

It’s a bittersweet summer for thousands of Bonner County graduates across three different generations, as the one teacher who united them all — Jon Brownell — has retired after 37 years with the Lake Pend Oreille School District. The esteemed choir teacher began his career right here in Sandpoint in 1989, introducing K-12 students to the joys of music and inspiring future singers, instructors and musical aficionados.

“No other teacher has taught for more than 37 years in this district. And I really think that it’s because I loved it here,” Brownell told the Reader. “I loved what I did, and you know, the old adage is, ‘Find what you love to do; you’ll never work a day in your life.’ That’s been me.”

Brownell knew music would be his life from an early age, and it helped that his passion went hand in hand with natural talent. From childhood through his high school and college years, his teachers identified and fostered his gift, setting him on his future path as not just a musician, but an educator.

“I just used what the good Lord gave me,” he said, later adding, “When I was in high school, my choir director would have me warm up my peers. I played warm-ups on the piano, and then he would take them, and I knew then that that was what I was going to do.

“He was a great role model, too. I had a great choir teacher in high school, and then when I went to college, I had a premier, nationally renowned professor, Dan Bukvich, and so between those two guys, it just spurred me on and inspired me to want to become what I became.”

He attended the University of Idaho, where he was introduced to the genre that would deepen his love of music and define much of his career: jazz.

“It opened a whole new door to me and I just sponged it up,” he said. “I was so hungry for it, and I loved it.”

That makes sense, since the UI Lionel Hampton School of Music is named after the great jazz bandleader, vibraphonist and percussionist — and was the first American university music school to bear the name of a jazz musician. It shares the name with the university’s annual jazz festival, at which Brownell’s students would go on to win their division in Senior Vocal Sweepstakes “pretty much every year.”

Straight out of college, Brownell moved to Bonner County to begin his teaching career, back when the Sandpoint Middle School building housed the high school, and the district still had a special sixth-grade center. Brownell taught at both, along with just about every other school in the district at the time: Farmin-Stidwell, Sagle, Northside and Washington elementaries.

“When I was teaching at the high school — which is now the middle school — I remember being in the parking lot and looking over through the trees, watching them build the school, which is now the high school,” he said.

The current Sandpoint High School building opened in 1991.

During his tenure, Brownell led SHS choirs on myriad musical journeys to competitions and performances from New York to the Bahamas — almost always coming home with resounding victory and a new plaque for the school’s walls. He inspired great passion in his students, even managing to lead a large men’s choir at SHS for years, which is a rarity among high schools.

“Students don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care,” Brownell told the Reader.

Clearly, Brownell cares a great deal. Taking over his position at SHS will be current SMS choir teacher Sigrid Ribeiro, who has taught music classes throughout the district for more than eight years. Though Brownell plans to enjoy much of his retirement from his boat, he isn’t quite ready to give up teaching altogether, which is why he will take over one period a day at Valor Christian High School for the 2026-’27 school year.

When asked if he had any parting words after nearly four decades with the school district, Brownell said simply: “Enjoy what you do; it could take you places you’ve never dreamed of.”