Choir Teacher Dies Minutes After Students Sing to Her

One beloved choir teacher had the send-off any teacher could hope for.

Mariana Walker, a choir teacher at Alvin Junior High School, was respected and renowned by her students.

“Mrs. Walker marched to a different beat,” Cindi Lee Cooper-Fields told ABC News. “She was artistic. She never wanted to be a teacher and taught for 17 years at Alvin Junior High School. Everybody deserved to have a teacher or a friend like this. She went out in style. She did it big, she did it her way.”

On Oct. 5, about 40 students gathered outside her home in Texas to sing to her one last time.

According to ABC, Walker’s students knew she had cancer, but did not know the severity of it. Cooper-Fields told her daughter, who is a student at the school, that it would be nice if a bunch of them got together to sing for her.

“I said, ‘I think it would be beautiful if you all would sing to her one last time,'” Cooper-Fields said. “We knew that Mrs. Walker had cancer, but she never told the kids how bad it was. They knew that she wouldn’t live much longer.”

So, they contacted Walker’s family to see if it would be all right if they sang, and sing they did.

The video below captures the emotional tribute to Walker.

Just 12 minutes after the singing concluded and the students left, Walker passed away.

Student Madi Webb recalled what she will miss most about Walker: “She just really influenced me in all aspects of life, not just singing. It was really hard for me because when I was in school there, I was really close with her. That was my last time really being with her.”

Cooper-Fields’ daughter added: “She told everyone we were the best singers in the world, but we knew it wasn’t true. We grew close as a family. Like Madi said, she really influenced us. She taught us how to be happy and love people unconditionally. She taught us a lot of life lessons and how to use singing as a way to express ourselves.”

Walker received an encore during her funeral services on Monday.