Country music star Larry Gatlin teaching UTPB music course
ODESSA, Texas (KOSA) - Country music star Larry Gatlin of the Gatlin Brothers, a grammy award winning trio, is teaching a music class at the University of Texas Permian Basin this semester.
A famous country music singer and West Texas native, Gatlin taught his first music class tonight as a professor for UTPB.
Gatlin says Odessa is home and while Nashville is home away from home for both him and his wife, it’s great to be home.
“My main mission, my main calling here is to share with them,let them know this is a safe place for their hearts, their art, their feeling if they wanna laugh, their tears are good. I’m not gonna grade them in their songs. I refuse to do that,” said Gatlin.
The course titled A Journey into Creativity is an 8 week hybrid course. Some students will be engaging online while about 15 students are taking the course in person for credit.
English Faculty Member Clark Moreland says in creating the course they tried to use Gatlin’s vision for their students to build a curriculum and the technology to bring it to life.
“Helping give them the courage, the techniques and the skills but really the courage to go out and publish their creative works,” said Moreland.
The course is meant to inspire and help students along with their creative process in whatever they do, whether it be writing musicals, singing, poetry or dance.
“We’re going to laugh and giggle and have fun. We might cry a little bit and I’m going to show them a few little tricks of the trade,” said Gatlin.
At the end of the course the students will have the chance to publish and perform their work.
Gatlin says his music took him away from this town making his dreams come true, traveling across the world to perform and it still brought him back, something he’s grateful for.
“I am greatly blessed and the man or woman that loves his or her job is always on vacation. I’ve been on vacation for 70 years singing songs about Jesus, God, heartache and heartbreak, little doggies and horsies and country music,” said Gatlin.
Despite all the success Gatlin has encountered since leaving West Texas, he says he’s the same kid from Odessa he always was.
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