Doing anything successfully for 50 years merits notice, and the SF Chronicle has provided a nice write-up on Carol Prater's long career teaching music to B'game students.  You can read the whole piece here but a couple of my favorite bits are:

On a mid-November day in 2021, Prater smiled at her band and cued the first notes of “Jingle Bells,” complete with the squawks and squeaks that have peppered her entire professional life.  These fourth- and fifth-graders are likely among the last of an estimated 25,000 students Prater will have taught music to during her 50-year career in the Peninsula city’s public schools. She’s leaning toward retiring — but isn’t firm about it.  (I added the bold 🙂

“I just don’t know about 51 …,” Prater said with a laugh after a group of Roosevelt Elementary kindergartners had filed out of her music room after singing and dancing with her. Her husband, Doy Prater, who was also a music teacher in the district, retired years ago.

And a good testimonial is worth its weight in gold…

Phil Grenadier was one of her first students to hear them when he was in the fourth grade in 1972. He is now a professional jazz trumpet player in New York, touring and recording, and remembers how “Mrs. Prater” saw something in him.  “She struck me as a young lady back then,” he said, realizing 50 years has passed for both of them.  She taught him to read music, helping him understand the difference between 16th, eighth and quarter notes with her mantra: “Mississippi, candy, Coke.”

Gotta love that little timing trick.  If you click through be sure to note that BCE apparently has a new name, and we also have a new school (Jefferson) that I am not familiar with.  Congrats on 50, Carol, don't rush into any decision on next school year!