After 60 years at Corn Bible Academy, 55 of them teaching music to students, Charles Regier is retiring from the school. Regier stopped teaching music in 2020 but stayed at the school to do fundraising full time.
Besides being the vocal and instrumental director from 1965 to 2020, he served as the principal, interim superintendent for two years and the development and public relations director from 1994 to the present.
Regier was 12 years old when he moved to Clinton, attended Wilson Junior High and went to Oklahoma Bible Academy in Enid for high school. He attended college in Omaha, Neb., and revived his master’s from Southwestern in Weatherford.
“I felt God was calling me to music full time,” Regier said.
At the age of 22 he started student teaching in Weatherford and visited Corn to provide private music lessons. Regier moved to Clinton in 1963 and was hired at CBA in 1965, which actually burned to the ground a few years later.
In his more than 50 years of teaching music Regier said he had been offered other opportunities from public schools and colleges.
“I never felt I should leave,” he said. “The students need to be here. God brought me here, and it was not easy, but it was so rewarding to see students excel as a vocal student or on instruments.”
Over his years of teaching he estimated having taught 1,400 to 1,500 students. CBA added the junior high in 1987.
He always felt God was calling him to music.
“I wanted to be in a ministry through music and skills for God,” he said. “My desire has always been to teach or help students learn how to portray their belief in Jesus through the music.”
Regier said he was always challenged by the weak singer to make them the best they could be by instilling confidence. His favorite thing at the school was starting the kids on instruments.
As a teacher he wanted his students to reach the next standard. In the music room at CBA the walls are covered with awards his students have won over the years. Regier added that while teaching music at CBA it was never an eight hour a day job, but his love of music was something he could not give up. He and his wife, Carol, and later his children, would discuss every year whether to continue and for 55 years he kept returning.
“I never got tired of teaching,” he said, but added he knew it was time back in 2020. One of his former students is now the new music director at CBA.
He said none of this could have happened without the support of his wife, Carol, who was his greatest fan and being there for all of it.
Regier and his wife were asked to be dorm parents for the boys’ dorm, which they did for seven years. During that time he also served as the principal of CBA.
Highlights of the music department during his 55 years as music director at CBA were choirs, church programs, marching and pep bands, tours and trips and private lessons. While he will not consider leaving CBA a full retirement and instead is retiring to something with whatever that may be.
“The joy of seeing students’ lives changed during their time at CBA and even later on is the true blessing that has been ours,” he said. “We have been privileged to work at a school that has remained constant in the original vision of the school from the beginning.”
After 60 years, 55 as the music instructor at Corn Bible Academy, Charles Regier will be retiring in December. His favorite instrument is the trombone.