KCUR 89.3
Retired biology teacher Dean Jernigan directs the We’re Not Dead Yet MissionSquare Meerkat Samba Band.
The MissionSquare Retirement community is now home to a samba band orchestrated by a retired biology teacher who has used the music to unite fellow residents.
Samba music is nothing new to retired biology teacher Dean Jernigan. He fell in love with the music decades ago at a Country Club Plaza Earth Day celebration and used it in his teaching at the Shawnee Mission South High School environmental science lab and as director of Union Station’s Science City.
“Samba became part of the entire experience, because samba comes from making sounds like the rain forest. Like the rattle of the rain and that type of thing,” Jernigan says.