Dusk had fallen and a nearly full moon hung low in the sky as Southwest Middle School music teacher Keith Ballard stepped onto an outdoor stage and addressed an audience of parents in his signature booming voice.
“This is my last concert,” Ballard announced, bringing a hush to the crowd. Behind him, roughly 80 middle school students dressed in the traditional charro suits of professional mariachi players stood in rows on the stage. They fiddled with the guitars, trumpets, guitarrons and violins they were about to play for an assembled crowd of several hundred at Southwest’s annual winter concert on Dec. 17.
Ballard, a pioneering mariachi and world music teacher who earlier this year capped a decades-long award-winning career by being named to the National Teachers Hall of Fame, thanked parents for coming and confirmed what many had already heard: He was retiring. His last day in the classroom would be Feb. 28…