ObituaryDale Peters
Submitted on Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Dale Hugh Peters (’52, ’53), Denton, Professor Emeritus of music, 1959-2005, died
July 16. He was coordinator of organ and harpsichord instruction for 20 years and
served for 12 years as associate dean for academic affairs in the College of Music.
His organ students won state and regional contests and held college teaching positions
and church music appointments in several states.Peters earned bachelor’s degrees in
organ and English from North Texas and a master’s in musicology from Columbia University.
He won first prize in the American Guild of Organists Young Artists Competition in
1954 and served as assistant organist/choirmaster at St. Paul’s Chapel at Columbia
University before receiving a Fulbright grant for study in Denmark. In 1983, he passed
the American Guild of Organists choirmaster examination and received the highest score
nationwide on the guild’s Fellowship examination, which earned him the S. Lewis Elmer
Award.Peters began playing organ at the First United Methodist Church in Denton in
1949 and, after a break for graduate study and Army service, became the full-time
choir director and organist in 1963, serving in those positions for 40 and 50 years.
The church is home to the Dale H. Peters Sanctuary Pipe Organ. Peters and his wife,
the late vocalist and lecturer Juanita Teal Peters (’51), regularly presented concerts
together. Donations may be made to the College of Music’s Dale Peters Organ Scholarship.