Sandra Herbert was trained to be a classical pianist, but her tastes never stayed there.
She played “whatever flipped her switch, from Mozart to the B-52s,” said her husband, Rick Herbert.
Sandra Herbert died of renal failure July 3 in Littleton. She was 58.
Herbert had a long career in performing and teaching music and directing plays and musical groups.
She was “always on” and loved to perform, Rick Herbert said, and she was a “triple threat” – she could sing, dance and play several instruments.
They met when he was the organist at a church in Riverside, Calif., and she applied for the choir director’s job. He hired her. They married June 26, 1971.
Sandra Herbert sang and danced with a group called the Young Americans, a national touring patriotic group of high school and college students. The 20- member group appeared on several national television shows with such celebrities as Ed Sullivan, Dean Martin, Danny Thomas and Andy Williams.
While earning a bachelor’s degree in music at the University of California at Riverside, Herbert was assistant conductor of the Choral Society and sang with the Madrigal Singers.
She performed in several plays in California, playing the lead in “The Fantasticks” and “Stop the World – I Want to Get Off.”
After moving to Colorado, she was in choirs and directed productions at Metropolitan State College.
She taught music at Columbine High School, Leawood Elementary and Arvada and Ken Caryl middle schools.
Herbert was teaching at Columbine the day two students went on a rampage in 1999, killing 12 students, a teacher and themselves.
The shootings happened around noon, and Herbert had gone home for lunch, her husband said. The choir room where she had been earlier was near the library where several students were trapped.
Herbert had taught some of the victims in elementary and middle school as well as at Columbine. “That day never left her,” her husband said.
Herbert was an accompanist for several theater groups, including the Littleton Main Street Players and the Evergreen Players.
Sandra Elaine Hornyak was born in Hackensack, N.J., on June 7, 1948, and moved with her family to Riverside when she was young.
In addition to her husband, she is survived by her daughter, Roxanne Han sen of Aurora; and her mother, Elaine Hornyak, and brother, Gary Hornyak, both of Riverside.
Herbert’s mother and father, the late Jasper Hornyak, were musicians. Her mother was a pianist and singer, and her father played the violin in the Glenn Miller Orchestra.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at vculver@denverpost.com or 303-820-1223.
