If you stop Linda Carpenter in the hallway at Martinsville and ask her what she does, she’ll give you a modest answer. She’ll tell you she teaches K-6 general music as well as 5th and 6th grade band, but she also leads the combined junior high and high school choir—known in Martinsville’s proud tradition as the Villagers. Oh, and by the way, she also directs the combined junior high and high school band which plays for football games, home basketball nights, Meet the Streaks, parades, Veterans Day programs, and whatever else the school calendar throws her way.

What won’t show up in her first answer—but will radiate through everything else she says—is that Martinsville isn’t just where she works. It’s home. It’s the place that raised her, taught her, and sent her into the world. And now, it’s the place she has chosen to give back to in a way that feels almost generational.

Linda graduated from Martinsville High School in 1996. “I was a music kid from fifth grade all the way through,” she says. Seven music teachers shaped her along the way, but the ones who carried her through her final years were Mr. Marsh and Mr. Warnick—teachers who covered everything from kindergarten through high school, much like Linda does today. That continuity matters in small towns. It creates a different kind of bond, one where teachers become fixtures of childhood, guiding presences across years rather than chapters.

After high school, Linda set out to become a music education major, then shifted to elementary education at Eastern Illinois University but kept her concentration in music. She added her K–12 endorsement more recently, allowing her to lean fully into the work she now so clearly loves.

Even then, she didn’t expect to return. “I used to say I wasn’t coming back here to teach,” she admits. But Martinsville has its own gravitational pull—one rooted in heritage, community memory, and relationships that never weaken even as time stretches on.

When she arrived, the high school band had just 13 students. Today, there are 22. Next year, if everyone returns, they’ll have 32 across junior high and high school—an enormous increase for a rural program.

That growth didn’t happen because of scheduling changes or new facilities or some sudden regional boom. It happened because a Martinsville kid returned home, cared deeply, and made space for students who needed a place to belong.

“We’re like a close family,” she says simply. Students say the same thing. Last year, on the very first day of band camp, several walked right up to her and said, “Please tell us you’re not leaving after a year.” It pierced her because she knew exactly what they were feeling. Rural schools deal with turnover. Kids get attached, then lose teachers. She lived through that as a student—but her teachers never left after one year. They stayed long enough to matter. She’s committed to doing the same.

“I said, ‘I don’t plan on going anywhere,’” she recalls. “This is my home. I live just south of town. This is where I was born and raised.”

What she provides, the kids feel. Many are not athletes. Many don’t have other clubs or teams where they feel naturally at ease. Music becomes the place where they’re most themselves. “This is my niche. This is my home,” they tell her.

Linda also refuses to let scheduling barriers keep kids out. If they have core classes that keep them from taking band or choir, she arranges an independent band or an independent choir. They practice on their own, come after school when needed, and join the full ensemble as concerts approach. Effort and commitment matter more than where a class lands in the day.

Those efforts are paying off. Two students advanced to ILMEA district ensembles this year: freshman Grace Penrod for high school treble choir and eighth grader Raelynn Murphy for junior high choir. It is a major accomplishment for any school—but especially a small downstate school where students often compete against larger northern districts. “It’s a big deal,” Linda says. And she’s right. Representation matters. When students from small towns step onto district or all-state stages, something shifts—not just for the student, but for the entire school community.

And then there’s the fifth grader playing French horn—one of the rarest instruments for young beginners. “He had one available instrument,” Linda says. “So he chose it.” French horn is notoriously challenging, but he’s tackling it with YouTube and self-teaching, echoing the quiet determination that rural schools seem to produce in abundance. If he sticks with it, the program already has a mellophone ready for him when he reaches marching band age.

There’s history here, too—history Linda is trying to keep alive. Years ago, a community member named Naomi Hills founded an ensemble called the Villagers. The name stuck, and today Linda uses it with pride to describe the combined junior high and high school choir. The Villagers continue to receive support from the original group’s endowment fund, which provides a monetary donation, shirts, plaque, flowers, and the kind of encouragement that keeps traditions from fading. Last Fall, plans were in place for a Thanksgiving performance at a local church—another quiet step toward rebuilding a once-thriving community ensemble—but the weather had other plans and the date was canceled with hopes of rescheduling.

The work is demanding, but what keeps Linda going are the small, human moments. When two students asked her to complete the teacher section of their National Honor Society applications, she felt the weight of what it meant. When one of them asked her to be her guest at the induction banquet, she felt something deeper: the affirmation that her presence in their lives mattered more than she realized.

“I’m humble,” she says. “I don’t take compliments well. But if I’ve impacted kids like that… I’ve done my job.”

Then there’s the student who wants to be a band director and come back to Martinsville and replace her someday. “You should be proud,” someone told her. She is—but with that humility that only people raised in small communities fully understand.

Linda has taught fourth grade, second grade, and multiple levels of music over her 18-year career, with 13 of those years in the music room. She misses the classroom sometimes, but she knows without hesitation that she’s where she’s supposed to be.

“I’m in my realm,” she says. And Martinsville agrees.

What Linda doesn’t fully articulate—but everyone around her can see—is that she is not just teaching music. She is preserving the culture of a place that raised her, giving students a home within a home, and ensuring that Martinsville continues to be a community that shapes its children through connection, artistry, and belonging.

She left. She learned. She grew. And then she came home.

Martinsville is better because she did.