Toledo schools administrator started choirs, sang baritone
7/16/2008David D. Carter, 81, a champion of vocal music as a Toledo teacher, died of leukemia Saturday in his South Toledo home.
In April, the David Carter Symphonic Choir performed at St. Michael's in the Hills Episcopal Church, Ottawa Hills, where he was a baritone soloist for decades. He was unable to direct the choir he founded in 1985. Still, he sang five numbers.
"We were concerned he wouldn't have breath control," his wife, Isabelle, said. "He stood there and performed just as he always had. The church gave him a standing ovation."
His choir performed with the Toledo Symphony, in churches, and at public events.
He founded the Toledo Afro-American Youth Choir in the 1970s and had been a soloist at The Temple-Congregation Shomer Emunim.
He retired in 1981 as an assistant principal of DeVilbiss High School. He taught at Start High School from 1972 to 1975 and took the choir to Poland, where it performed for the priest who became Pope John Paul II.
Mr. Carter directed choral music at Scott High from 1962 to 1971.
He taught special-education students at Robinson Junior High and developed a choir for them. "He was always encouraging you and pushing you forward," said Beverly Tucker, a student of his at Scott who is assistant principal at McKinley Elementary School.
A Newton, Ga., native, Mr. Carter was a graduate of Savannah State College and attended Bowling Green State University. He received a master's degree from the University of Toledo.
Surviving are his wife, Isabelle, a retired TPS administrator whom he married June 22, 1948; daughters, Deborah Carlisle and Shari Mayer; sister, Hattye Burns, and two grandchildren.
The body will be in the Dale-Riggs Funeral Home after 4 p.m tomorrow. Services will be at 10 a.m. Friday in St. Michael's in the Hills Episcopal Church, of which he was a member.
The family suggests tributes to the Toledo Public Schools Foundation for the David D. Carter Vocal Music Scholarship or to the church music fund.