The following article was published in March of 2000.

Standing on stage under the spotlight with 1,000 audience members staring at him, Robert Linhart felt uncharacteristically speechless. Although he had been on stage in numerous musical and theatrical performances dating back to his days at Southwestern, this was different.

This time, Linhart was receiving the Houston Crystal Apple Award, given annually to six teachers out of more than 1,000 nominations from all public and private schools in the Gulf Coast area. Each school can nominate one teacher, and a Houston Chronicle selection committee chooses the winners.

"I didn't realize what a true honor it was until I was up on that stage, standing next to teachers with 20 to 30 years experience," says Linhart, 30. "They were looking at me and probably thinking, 'Who is this kid?'' Really, though, they were all great and treated me kind of like a son."

While it may be unusual for a young teacher to win such an award, there is little Linhart does that might be considered "usual". Beyond teaching music, drama and choir at St. Francis Episcopal School, he also serves as fine arts chair and dean of students at the school. He is head junior varsity football coach at Lutheran North High School, where he's also assistant coach for the varsity team. He serves on the play reading committee at Country Play House, the largest community theater in Houston, and he currently is writing a Christmas pageant for First United Methodist Church of Houston. He also enjoys performing theatre in his spare time with his wife, Stephanie. They currently are performing together in "Oliver!" at Miller Outdoor Theatre.

Linhart attributes much of his drive and focus to his time spent at Southwestern. "There is not a day that goes by that I don't use what I learned at Southwestern. I appreciate the attention I got from professors like Dr. Hossalla, Dr. Sheppard, and Kathleen Juhl." In fact, when conducting his music students, Linhart still uses the baton he made in Sheppard's garage with classmates.

After graduating with a double major in music and theatre, Linhart worked professionally in theatre for a year in the Houston area. When presented with the opportunity to build a new fine arts program at St. Francis, he seized it. There, he taught by day and attended classes at night in route to earning his masters in music literature from the University of Houston.

"When I first came here, there was no music or drama classes for 5th through 8th grades. I got a chance to develop the curriculum. When we started the choir, for instance, there were six members. Now we have over 100." This year, 31 members of Linhart's advanced choir have been invited to perform at Disney World.

Linhart is eager to begin working on his doctorate in education administration, hoping to eventually become a fine arts administrator of a high school, a school district, or a university. "Maybe I could even come back to SU someday."

"Southwestern was invaluable to me. I made all of my lifelong friends there and received a wonderful education. What other place can you have regular lunches with professors whose classes you haven't taken? The greatest thing I ever did was fill out that application to SU."

His wife of three years, Stephanie, is a chemical engineer at Exxon Mobil Corporation. Besides performing theatre together, they enjoy every opportunity to travel the globe - "Especially now before we have kids."