James L. Hardy, WSU professor emeritus of music, was a longtime chairman of the university’s music education department. Before making the leap to higher education, he taught vocal music at Wichita’s Robinson Junior High, where his choral groups excelled.
In a 1993 letter in support of Hardy’s nomination for the Kansas Music Educator’s Hall of Fame, Mark Wait ’71 notes that his former teacher had a “gift for enabling others to lift their vision, and to help themselves and others realize truly artistic aspirations.”
Jim Hardy died Oct. 8, 2008, in Wichita.