30 Years, 60 Semesters and One Guitar: Jason Riley Celebrates Three Decades at Benedictine College
ATCHISON, Kan. — In the fall of 1996, Jason Riley was a young guitarist fresh out of college, just beginning to figure out what kind of musician and teacher he might become.
Benedictine College invited him to join its music faculty as an adjunct professor of guitar.
Thirty years later, Riley is still coming to campus.
For approximately 60 consecutive semesters, Riley has made the weekly drive from St. Joseph to Atchison to teach guitar—usually one very full Friday at a time. Along the way, he has taught beginners discovering their first chords, intermediate players finding their musical voice, and advanced music majors who chose guitar as their primary instrument.
Some of those students have gone on to careers with companies such as Gibson and Musician’s Friend. Others have built their own livelihoods as performers, teachers, guitar retailers, recording artists and music entrepreneurs. Some have opened their own guitar shops and music businesses. They have scattered across the country and even into Europe.
All of them, for a time, shared a common starting point:
Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas.
And Riley has had the privilege of watching them grow.
A front-row seat to change
“When I started, I was barely older than some of the students,” Riley remembers. “It was pretty easy to connect with them because we were all young. At some point, I realized I had become the mature guy in the room.”
The generations changed. The music changed. Technology changed. Benedictine changed.
The campus itself became a visual record of the passing years.
From his teaching space in Bishop Fink Hall, Riley has watched new buildings and campus expansions appear just outside his window. He has watched Benedictine grow in size and scope while remaining recognizable in the qualities that originally drew him to the college.
And he has watched faculty members he admired and learned from retire or pass away, making room for new generations of educators.
Through it all, Riley remained.
The guitar remained, too.
“That’s one of the things I love about teaching guitar,” he says. “The instrument changes very little in terms of what it asks of you. Every student is different, but the guitar gives us this common language.”
Learning from the greats
Riley arrived at Benedictine with a degree in music performance from Missouri Western State University, but his education as a teacher continued through the people around him.
He remembers the Benedictine music faculty of his early years with particular gratitude. They were accomplished musicians and educators who had careers extending well beyond the classroom—performing with regional symphonies, leading churches and community choruses, touring internationally and building lives around music.
“They didn’t just teach me how to teach,” Riley says. “They showed me what it looked like to build a life in music.”
One mentor left a particularly lasting impression.
Margaret Kew, a longtime violinist, strings educator and respected musician, once told Riley:
“I have endless patience for young musicians.”
Riley has never forgotten those words.
Kew had earned the right to be demanding. She had worked alongside some of the world’s finest professional musicians. Riley even remembers seeing her perform with Jimmy Page and Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin.
But when it came to young musicians, her approach was different.
She was patient.
She was encouraging.
She believed in the next generation.
“That really stuck with me,” Riley says. “Every student should have somebody like that in their life. I hope I’ve been able to be that person for some of my students.”
More than guitar lessons
At Benedictine, guitar has never existed in isolation.
Riley’s students have used the instrument in countless ways—as musicians, worship leaders, performers, composers, educators and members of the college community.
They have prepared music for Mass, played in jazz ensembles, participated in recitals and auditioned for events such as Battle of the Bands and Benedictine’s “Jam for the Lamb.”
Some students came to Riley already knowing exactly what they wanted to do with music.
Others simply wanted to learn guitar.
Both were welcome.
“The students who choose Benedictine are special,” Riley says. “They’re coming here because they want an education, but they’re also looking for a community. Faith, family, education and the future are all part of the conversation.”
Those conversations have become one of the most meaningful parts of his career.
Over three decades, former students have become friends, professional colleagues and fellow musicians. Riley has watched students graduate, move across the country, establish careers, start families and build musical lives of their own.
“That’s the part you don’t always realize when you’re teaching the lesson,” he says. “You’re not just teaching somebody guitar. You’re becoming a small part of their story.”
A musical life beyond the classroom
Riley’s relationship with Atchison has extended well beyond Benedictine’s campus.
The town has provided him with countless opportunities to perform professionally through the years, including appearances and events connected with the MunchNic Art Gallery, the Muddy River Festival, the Amelia Earhart Festival, Chamber of Commerce events, downtown celebrations, private events at Maur Hill-Mount Academy and even live music on river cruises.
One of the highlights was performing Joaquín Rodrigo’s monumental Concierto de Aranjuez with the Atchison community symphony.
For a guitarist, performing the Concierto de Aranjuez is a special opportunity. It is one of the most important works ever written for classical guitar and orchestra.
For Riley, performing it in the community where he had spent so many years teaching made the experience even more meaningful.
“Atchison has given me a lot,” he says. “I’ve been able to teach here, perform here and build relationships here. It’s become a really important part of my musical life.”
The Friday drive
For 30 years, there has also been something wonderfully ordinary about the routine.
One day a week.
One long Friday.
A drive from St. Joseph to Atchison.
In his younger years, Riley could finish a full day of teaching at Benedictine and still head toward Kansas City to teach more lessons or play an evening gig.
He could do that because he was young.
But even now, he still enjoys the drive.
The Missouri River bluffs.
The trains.
The changing leaves.
The transition from fall into winter and then into spring.
The same roads, year after year, carrying him toward another Friday of music.
“It’s funny how much you notice the seasons when you make the same drive for 30 years,” Riley says. “You see the leaves change, disappear and come back. You watch the campus change. You see students come and go.”
And then, somehow, another semester begins.
Thirty years of continuity
Riley’s 30 years at Benedictine are part of a larger musical career that has also included a similar long-term relationship with Missouri Western State University, where he earned his degree and continues to teach, as well as a career performing live music and working with bands and musicians across the region.
He has built a life around a simple idea:
Stay connected to good people and good music.
It may be loyalty to a fault, he jokes.
But it has also been a source of tremendous fulfillment.
“Thirty years is a long time,” Riley says. “There aren’t many things you can say, ‘I did this every year for 30 years.’ Every year has been different, but there has also been this incredible continuity.”
As an adjunct faculty member, Riley has never been the person with the biggest office or the most visible title. Adjunct faculty often work quietly in the background, teaching their hours and heading home.
For Riley, that quietness has never meant insignificance.
Behind the scenes are hundreds of students.
Dozens of colleagues.
Thousands of lessons.
Countless songs.
Performances.
Conversations about faith, family, music and the future.
And a generation of musicians who have taken what they learned at Benedictine and carried it somewhere else.
“I’m not sure very many people at Benedictine even realize how long I’ve been here,” Riley says with a laugh. “I tend to just go to my studio or classroom and do the work.”
But perhaps that is exactly what makes the milestone so meaningful.
Thirty years of showing up.
Thirty years of teaching.
Thirty years of listening.
Thirty years of believing in young musicians.
Thirty years of watching a college and a community grow while remaining a small, steady part of both.
And thirty years of discovering that the most rewarding part of a career in music isn’t necessarily the music itself.
It’s the people.
“I’ve learned a lot from my students, too,” Riley says. “That’s probably one of the greatest gifts of teaching. You think you’re there to give something to them, and then you realize how much they have given you.”
This fall marks Riley’s 30th anniversary as an adjunct professor of guitar at Benedictine College.
Thirty years after a young graduate from Missouri Western State University first walked into Bishop Fink Hall, he is still there—guitar in hand, ready for the next student, the next song and the next generation.
