I was born and raised in the Madison area. Following my undergrad at Carroll College, I settled back in the Madison area for my first teaching job. I am fortunate to have known my husband, Trevor, since kindergarten. We dated through high school and college and married at Holy Cross in Madison in 2001 where we had been students from kindergarten through eighth grade.

With both of our extended families are in the Madison area and having enjoyed our upbringings, we always thought that we’d raise our own family in Madison, but Trevor’s work brought us to the Lake Country area in 2002, and we’ve never looked back. We’ve built two houses in Oconomowoc and have been blessed to raise our three kids here.

I’ve directed church choirs and taught private piano and voice lessons during the last 20+ years here. Plus, I’ve managed club and high school soccer teams for my kids. Next school year marks my 25th year in music education with the last 16 years being in the Oconomowoc Area School District, and 5 years before that at St. Jerome. Oconomowoc is a truly special place for The Arts. Facilitating and creating music and musical theater with some of the most dedicated and driven students, families, colleagues, and administrators during these years has been my privilege. I consider having landed and laid roots personally and professionally here in Oconomowoc to be among my greatest blessings.

About Beth Kauffeld

Q: Please tell us a little bit about your family.

Our kids, Owen, Evan, and Isabel have all attended OASD schools from 4K on. Isabel will join me at the high school as a freshman next school year; Evan will be a senior. Owen will be a Sophomore at Edgewood College studying Marketing and Business with a passion for photography and videography. Trevor is a Senior Project Manager for a specialty engineering and construction company and has even done some work right here in downtown Oconomowoc. Outside of school and work, we all spend as much time on the water as possible, on the ski hills, and on the soccer field or the soccer sidelines cheering on our very own Edgewood Eagle and Oconomowoc Raccoon.

Q: Please tell us about your life and what you do (whether working in our community, a business owner, volunteer, etc.). How did you choose that path?

I’m wrapping up my eighth year as the Choral Director and Vocal Director for Musical Theater at Oconomowoc High School. At OHS, I direct three curricular choirs, two co-curricular pop and jazz choirs, and the vocal music for our award-winning musical theater productions, as well as facilitate regular performances of our students throughout our community. You could say that I’m presently doing what I always wanted to do.

As a high school student, I had the best of the best in choir directors at Monona Grove High School. Lori Nahirniak was the new choir director at Monona Grove when I was a freshman coming into public school from a little private school. She was kind and patient and took a chance on me with exactly zero dance or acting experience when she cast me as an awkward freshman in West Side Story. During high school, Lori and her accompanist and composer husband, Taras, invested as much as humanly possible into the musical process. I got to be part of all of it. Their dedication and passion fueled a fire in me. Without a doubt in my mind, I pursued a degree in music education at Carroll in hopes that someday, I would get to share with kids the great reward of music performance.

I get to love what I do every day because they inspired me to do so and showed me how. The world is a small place and sometimes your story comes full circle, as it has for me. Lori and Taras have since retired from Monona Grove. They now reside in Oconomowoc where they continue to be involved in music. Lori has had my daughter, Isabel, in voice lessons. Taras is our OHS Choirs accompanist.  THESE have been the sweetest “life full circle” moments!

Q: What do you love most about what you do?

Making music every day!

Q: What was the most difficult challenge in getting to where you are now or in your life?

I think the most challenging part of getting to where not only I am, but to where all educators are on any given day, is that this role is far more than the content we teach.

Q: What is the most rewarding part?

Rewards in this calling are bittersweet. The end goal is to prepare students to leave you, your classroom, and OHS and thrive and contribute in this wild world. So, the greatest reward comes when students take their gifts and skill sets out into the community and beyond. When they create even more music and opportunities for others to grow and learn. BUT… even sweeter is when they reach out to personally tell you about it! As of late, I have a former student that just cut a record! Another that is creating vocal arrangements for his college a cappella group! Also, a couple embarking on their student teaching as music educators!

Q: What are some of your future goals? Do you have anything exciting coming up that you would like to share?

At the 25-year mark, you do kind of start asking yourself, what’s next or is this it? My path to this point has been a winding one. Unexpected change and challenges have always turned into glorious opportunity that I sometimes didn’t know I needed or wanted. So, my future goals are to stay open minded to the possibilities that lie ahead! To learn and adapt as our ever-changing educational world requires. To continue to cultivate music in Oconomowoc, and to find the joy in my classroom one day at a time!

I am beyond excited to share that for the first time ever, we will be presenting not one but TWO musicals in the 2023-24 season of the OHS Players… Once Upon a Mattress in the fall and Little Women in the spring. Also, the OHS Concert Choir will once again collaborate with the Wisconsin Philharmonic on their 2023 Holiday Concert, “A Royal Christmas.” Tickets for all these events can be purchased through the OAC Box Office!

Q: What advice would you give to someone interested in doing something similar to what you have done/are doing?

My advice to those interested in a career in education is to seek out opportunities to really understand what this role of educator entails. Be a teaching assistant, work in a daycare, interview teachers and administrators. Give music lessons, be a lifeguard or a camp counselor, create a network of fellow educators that can serve as your mentors and sounding board. Know that all things that are worth it are generally hard. Teaching is worth it… and some days are hard! Kara Lawson, Duke Women’s Basketball, gave one of her signature pep talks in July 2022. There were many truths in that speech. My favorite that I have held tightly to this school year is, “If you have a meaningful pursuit in life, it will never be easy.” That one resonates deeply.

Beth Kauffeld & Our Community

Q: What is your favorite thing about our community, favorite thing to do, or something unique about our community that you love? (Feel free to share as much as you’d like!)

The lakes! Growing up in Madison, I spent much of each summer on Lake Monona skiing behind my grandpa’s boat, but that does not come close to the summers that so many kids around here have. I tell my own kids all the time that they have a summer life here unlike most. Spending many days and most summer nights with friends on our boat or somebody else’s, a paddleboard, a pier, or a beach. Serenaded by live music sounds forth from the bandshell, the Village Green, or a certain well-known front porch.

Q: Do you have a favorite coffee shop, cocktail shop, or restaurant?

Our whole family loves Sobie’s!

Q: What 3 words would you use to describe our community?

Home- Sweet- Home.

For Fun

Q: What is your favorite book, TV show, movie, poem, or song? Why?

Here are my favorite few lines from a poem by Arthur O’Shaughnessy: “We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams. Yet we are the movers and shakers of the word forever it seems”! These words capture how I feel about what we are called to do as musicians and artists in this world.

Q: Who inspires you to be better?

My dad!

Q: If you were a drink (can be a coffee drink, alcoholic, non-alcoholic, etc.), what would you be?

I think my go-to coffee drink actually represents who I aim to be pretty well. A vanilla latte with half the usual pumps of sweetener- strong and full of energy, warm, and sweet but not too sweet!

Q: If you could have lunch with anyone, who would it be with? Why?

My Grandparents. Three out of my four grandparents passed away before I was born or before I was able to truly know them.

Q: What is something on your bucket list?

To go sailing on a big sailboat on big water!

Q: What makes you the happiest?

Time with family!

Q: Any general life advice you would like to share?

Live a life full of grace freely given!