Jane Elrod Hughes

Jane was a music teacher, pianist and pioneering music therapy clinician who was awarded the American Music Therapy Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001. She taught hundreds of students with disabilities in Leon County Public Schools, who recognized and greeted her until her final days. While her disease progressed, she never lost her love of music and was able to recall lyrics and melodies until her last days.

She was preceded in death by her husband William O. Hughes, son Miles William Hughes, parents Pearl Ragan Elrod and Joseph Marion Elrod, and sisters Jeannette, Marion and Louise.

She is survived by her daughters Sallie Hughes of Fort Lauderdale and Cindy Hughes of Tavernier, Florida, her daughter-in-law Leigh Ann Hayward Hughes of Oak Park, Illinois, her grandchildren Domenic, Ragan and Reece Hughes of Chicago and Oak Park, and her nieces and nephews Jennie Lou Divine Reid, R. Benjamin Reid, Mary Jane Divine Millen, Michael Millen, Alberta Sprott McKay, Jimmy Sprott, Robert Hughes, Karen Hughes O’Leary, Lauren Hughes, David Hughes, Jerry Hughes and Jenks Hughes.

She delighted in her grandnieces and grandnephews Elisabeth, Margaret and Benjamin Reid, Jeannie, Freddy and Lyda Smith, and Hannah Hayward, Camile Hayward Brits and Lydia Hayward. She adored meeting and frequently admiring pictures of her great grandnephews Asher and Caleb Ames, Walker and Maxwell Reid and Carter Benjamin Reid.

Jane was born in Tifton, Georgia and attended Georgia College, majoring in Music. She received her MA degree in Music Education from Columbia University, where she met her husband, Bill, after a serendipitous elevator ride during which he heard her Southern accent. After the family moved from Michigan to Tallahassee in 1977, she studied in Florida State University’s program in music therapy and became one of the first to receive board certification in the profession. Among highlights in her 23-year career were creating an outstanding clinical program, an internship training program recognized as one of the finest in the country, publishing with her former professor in respected academic journals and co-authoring a university textbook still used at FSU.

She was a founder of the Big Bend Very Special Arts Festival and the chorus at Gretchen Everhart School, performing in senior centers, the state capitol and other places. She led students from the gifted and disabilities programs to The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., for the first International Very Special Arts Festival in 1989, where they were featured on an NBC special and met Irish singer-songwriting Bono of U2. With virtually no forewarning, they also took center stage at the White House with President George H.W. Bush.

After retirement in 2003, Hughes lived part of the year in Oak Park, Illinois, so she could be a bigger part of the lives of her grandchildren Nic, Ragan and Reece. She moved to Westminster Oaks in 2013, where she was active in singing and theater groups. She was a member of First Presbyterian Church of Tallahassee for almost 50 years.

A Memorial Service will be held at First Presbyterian Church of Tallahassee, 110 North Adams Street, on Saturday Feb. 8, at 1 pm.

In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made in Jane’s memory to The Florida State University College of Music Program in Music Therapy, the Westminster Oaks Foundation or Big Bend Hospice and its animal therapy program.