Mercedes Tucker Stamps, who spent over thirty years as a music educator at 10 different New Orleans schools, has passed away in North Carolina at the age of 87.

An honors graduate of Southern University, Stamps lived in New Orleans until 2006, when she and her husband, Herbert Walker Stamps, moved to Statesville, NC after Katrina destroyed their house.

Over her long career, Stamps touched the lives of thousands of New Orleans school children, including John Boutte, Freddy Lonzo and Earl Turbinton. Her first job was at the (no longer extant) Gilbert Academy, where one of her students was a 12-year-old named Ellis Marsalis.

A recipient of OffBeat Magazine's Best-of-the-Beat Lifetime Achievement Award for Music Education, she was also the subject of Al Kennedy's book, Mercedes Tucker Stamps: A Public School Teacher's Contribution to New Orleans Music History.

Her funeral will be held on Friday, June 7, in Statesville, NC.

A memorial service will be held June 29 at 11 am in Lawless Memorial Chapel at Dillard University.

Here is the Times-Picayune's obituary.