From non-traditional student to fulfilled alumna, still teaching music at 83

At the age of 42, Faye Elaine Best made the decision to go to college at SUNY Oswego. With unwavering determination to push her forward, the 1989 graduate pursued a music degree in hopes to make her dreams come true.

Now, at 83, Best continues to teach music at her own center for arts, endlessly inspiring the Fulton community and beyond with her love for music.

The time she spent at SUNY Oswego helped shape her professional music career, but her story does not begin there.

Growing up, Best and her family never lived in one area for too long. But with each place her family settled, her parents never failed to take her to church. Often going three times a week, church quickly became a place of inspiration for her.

“I think my biggest influence in music was going to church, because some of that was the first I’d ever heard people sing together,” Best said.

This newfound passion motivated her to seek opportunities in which she could carry out her artful expression. Whether it was taking piano lessons or playing music for a newly developed church mission, Best always found a way to exercise her love for music.

It was due to these experiences that Best realized her dream was to teach music. A turning point in her life was when she played for a group of preschool children in 1968.

Best’s dream did not stay behind when she moved to Fulton in 1976. She continued to play music for churches in the area while raising seven children at home.

As time went by, a few of her children — Brian Pringle and Walter Best, who both became 2001 graduates — wanted to go to SUNY Oswego. Best figured that she would get an education alongside them. She was able to graduate in three years due to her prior music and life experience. While in school, she learned the theory and history of music, and hit life milestones, such as becoming a grandmother.

After graduating, Best and her husband James built the Wm. Michael Center for Arts in 1990, named after family members who unfortunately died in an airplane crash in 1987. The center is filled with pictures, paintings and objects that reflect on the lives of their loved ones. Their collection only expanded with new influences the center brought in throughout the years.

Gathering a community

The center gradually became a place for the Fulton community to gather. What started as Best going house to house, encouraging neighbors to stop by, became people coming on their own from all over the place, including students from SUNY Oswego. The center also became a home for special-needs students to express themselves through music. Best proved to the community how important music could be for these students.

Music "gives these young people that are special needs a voice,” Best said. “Some of them don’t have a voice, but if they can sit down and play something they feel is pretty or it's something that makes them feel good to hear, it gives them a voice.”

Best’s music center influenced many, inspiring those who visit to open up their own little facility. Everything she accomplished has focused on her love for music and sharing that love with her community.

“I reached a lot of people,” Best said. “We remind people what is important in life.”

The experiences and joyful memories Best gained from her center have been the most valuable of her career and life. Some of Best’s highlights include putting on programs and recitals to showcase what her special-needs students were working on.

At one of these programs, she asked one of her students to recite “Twas the Night Before Christmas,” and he did it with perfection, impressing every person in the room with his memory.

One of her most notable highlights was at the end of another program, when a father gave his special-needs daughter a bouquet of flowers for the first time.

“The flowers meant so much to her and people clapped. For them it was a first,” Best said. “She just had these other disabilities, but she’s still in there. We just tried to bring it out.”

Best can go on and on about the stories she has from teaching at her center and continues to gather more while still working at the age of 83.

Best hopes her students who leave the center can spread the same love and joy that music has brought her. She hopes to have made a difference in her students, carrying this shared passion for music throughout their lives.

Even through the ups and downs of her life, Best never gave up on her dream. She not only used her passion to make this lifelong desire come true but also to influence a whole community of people. Best is grateful for the education she gained at SUNY Oswego and will never forget what the school allowed her to do.

“I couldn’t have done it without Oswego,” Best said.

— Written by Kayla Kubelka of the Class of 2026 for University Advancement