COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — In one way or another, Cynthia Dybik has been with Columbus City Schools since 1972.

“It’s like a half a century. That’s a long time. I’ve done a lot of things in that time, and I’m really excited about the whole thing because I can now sit down and think about it a little bit,” Dybik said.

Over the years, Dybik took Independence High School’s Show Choir to the 2009 Presidential Inauguration and other students to Carnegie Hall. Habiba Bankston, a former student, said Dybik helped her to find her singing voice, but touched her life in other ways as well.

“She also saw a leader in me before I saw one in myself. I think that is the beauty of Mrs. Dybik and also about her classroom. She didn’t just have kids in there singing songs and putting on songs for our peers in the community. She was building leaders in her classroom,” Bankston said.

Dybik teaches chorus and instruments at Fairwood Elementary School. Before that, she taught music at Crestview Middle School, North High School, Eastmoor High School and Independence High School.

No matter where she was, she could find the right sound, Dybik said. “If you sit in a room and if things are going right, the vibrations don’t hit each other, and they bounce off each other — the room rings and it’s beautiful, and we’ve had that sound every once in a while here,” she said.

Her last day of class at Fairwood Elementary will be the last day of school in June.