Principal Spotlight: Wandy Taylor, Lilburn Elementary

"I wake up every morning and thank the heavens above that God has given me so much family to love. And when the world turns its back on me, I look around, and what do I see? A warm and gentle family embracing tenderly."

-- "We Are Family"

By Wandy Taylor

Wandy Taylor hopes her students some day feel as comfortable in front of crowds as she does.

Singing since childhood at large family gatherings -- often her own songs -- made a difference in the Lilburn Elementary School principal's life.

"We tell our kids to sit down, be quiet and not make noise, but I love... kids having more flexibility in self expression," she said.

"Having the opportunity at an early age to experience performing on stage in front of crowds has helped ease the transition to getting up in front of students and parents. I'm keen on having kids in my school have that same kind of opportunity. I know what it's done for me personally, and I want our kids to have that same type of platform."

Taylor considers addressing her school's 1,260 students, staff and parents like testing a new song at a command performance of 100-plus relatives at her family's typically huge reunions, where some of her nine siblings sing with her or provide instrumental accompaniment. She's perhaps just as certain of her spoken message now as she was her melodic ones back then.

"It was more of a natural calling and a personal love, growing up around music and singing," she said of having no musical training. "I used to write a lot of songs for fun because my brothers and i just liked music."

Taylor often collaborated musically with triplet brothers Keith, Kent and Kirt Wallace, as well as brother Weldon. Keith sometimes sang with her, while Kent and Kirt usually played keyboards and Weldon the guitar. And despite her brothers now being spread throughout South Carolina and Tennessee, they still occasionally create music with her.

Taylor has been known to leave a verse of a new song in their voicemail, for them to put to music. For an aunt's birthday party in May, she modified a popular song to her preferred octave, messaged it as an audio clip to Kent, who improvised keyboard accompaniment. Kent drove from Columbia, S.C., and Taylor from Buford, and the two had just 10 minutes to hastily practice before the party in Aiken, S.C. Still, Taylor recalled, it came off nearly without a hitch.

Most fondly, though, Taylor recalls a family reunion in Charleston, S.C., about five years ago, before which she and her brothers collaborated in a recording studio on an original song of hers, "We Are Family." Borrowing the name of Sister Sledge's 1979 pop anthem, her song was a more tender, heart-felt one loved by the estimated 120 family members there. It was so popular, in fact, that the 40 or so CDs Taylor and her brothers brought sold out, and they mailed out about that many more afterward. The five dollars a piece went toward the family's next reunion.

"We are the family of tomorrow, in times of joy and in times of sorrow," went the chorus. "From the time we were born, our bond is oh so strong. We are family, you and me."

Taylor's family is extensive; her father was the oldest of eight kids and her mother youngest of nine. Add in Taylor's five children and five grandchildren, the thread of music still weaves throughout.

Taylor came by her musical talent early, when her guitar-playing dad ad libbed songs that she and siblings mistook for real. She became musically aware in the 1960s, cutting her teeth on Motown. And when the Jackson Five caught fire in the '70s, Taylor leant the words to her brothers' mimicry of Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon and Michael.

She fondly recalls feeding dimes to the jukebox at her father's convenience store down the street from her high school. While she and friends cleaned there, they'd wind up singing and dancing to their favorite hits.

Now, though, that jukebox is instead Taylor's computer that still streams those timeless Motown favorites and a little jazz in the background while she works. Seems there's increasingly less time for anything else. Sibling collaboration in the family room seems a distant memory amid demands of Taylor's fourth year at her 40-year-old school, following a year as a counselor at Lilburn Middle and seven as a teacher and administrator in South Carolina.

There's so little time to write songs. In fact, the huge family is long overdue for its usual bi-annual reunion.

Be assured, though, as everyone prepares to gather next, Taylor knows she'll again field the inevitable question: "What are you doing for music?"