Donor Spotlight: Richard Yeager

Richard Yeager

In September 1956, Lester Yeager returned to Albright when he was named assistant professor of music at Albright College, a position he maintained for several years. Lester was renowned in local music communities as a musician and music educator, having played professionally for more than 60 years. He was also widely known and respected for his musical arrangements. Chances are, if you were a member of any band in Berks County in high school, you knew Lester or at least had heard of his name. In 1963 Lester was elected president of the Pennsylvania Collegiate Bandmasters Association.

Lester’s musical interest stemmed from nine years of violin study during his youth. At one point, he thought he wanted to be a doctor and attended Schuylkill College (now Albright). During his third year of pre-medical studies, his interests turned entirely to music; and he pursued that as his vocation, where his instrumental specialties included woodwinds in dance bands and concert bands and the viola in symphony and chamber orchestras.

Lester Yeager,
Assistant Professor
of Music

“Although I did not attend Albright, I recall visiting the campus many times during my father’s employment there,” said Lester’s son Richard, an accomplished art director and painter who now resides in New Jersey. “My father was very proud to have been affiliated with Albright, and I wanted to remember his time as a member of the college’s music faculty. Establishing an endowed scholarship in his name through my estate for students to study music at Albright seemed to be a fitting tribute to him. I know the influence he had on so many lives as an instructor and a musician. It’s my hope that this scholarship will inspire Albright students to participate with that same kind of community spirit.”