Elizabeth "Libby" Bradshaw Carlton, a retired assistant professor of music and founder of the Community Music Program at Catawba College, was inducted into the Tazewell (Va.) High School Hall of Fame on July 23. Tazewell HS Hall of Fame recognizes graduates or staff for their achievement or outstanding accomplishments in their lives and/or their communities.
Carlton, who was salutatorian of her 1956 Class at Tazewell High, went on to earn her two undergraduate degrees from Georgetown College in Gerogetown, Ky., and also a master's degree from that institution.
It was at Georgetown College that she met and married fellow graduate, Robert Carlton. Both Mrs. Carlton and her late husband, Robert, served on the faculty at Catawba College. He was the mathematics department chair, and she was an assistant professor of music from 1983 until 1997.
Catawba honored Mrs. Carlton with its Swink Award for Outstanding Classroom Teaching in 1990. She also founded the Catawba Community Music program which offered after-school music and movement classes in piano, strings and chorus.
A certified Orff teacher and a nationally recognized clinician, Mrs. Carlton has authored many articles and co-authored nine books concerning the role of music and movement in elementary education. She has served as music consultant for High/Scope Educational Research Foundation, as a consulting editor for the Children's Music Series, Lifeway Church Music Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention, and was organist at First Baptist Church in Salisbury for more than three decades.
Mrs. Carlton and her late husband had two children, Karen and Kevin, who is a 1985 Catawba alumnus, and seven grandsons. Kevin and wife Wendy have established an endowed scholarship fund at Catawba in honor of his parents.
