Musical is one word that has been used to describe the Bennetts, and it’s no surprise. Over the last four decades, the couple has been heavily involved in Malad’s music scene from the ground up.  In addition to their decades of work with the school district, the Bennetts have also taught thousands of private lessons, played at countless church services, led the Community Chorus, and been instrumental, if you’ll pardon the pun, in the growth and development of generations of local aspiring musicians.  The City Council recognized their contributions to the community by naming them the Grand Marshals of this year’s  Fourth of July parade.

Lamona was born in Logan, but raised in Michigan and New York.  With a great grandparent from Malad (a Jones, of course), she eventually looked westward and went to Utah State to go to school.  She met Ralph in the band where they both played the French horn.

“Yeah, she played French horn three chairs above me in the band.  And then when we got married our teacher put her on first and me on last—I got told right up front,” Ralph says as the couple laughs.  

The French horn is famously hard to play, but the fact that both of them pursued it speaks to their tenacity.  They had been married for a year when the school in Malad called USU and asked if there was anyone close to getting their degree because the music teacher in Malad had left six weeks into the school year.  Ralph had just started his senior year, so he took the interview for the position.  “I said I’d give them a couple years, but that was…fifty years ago?”  

Ralph himself grew up in Tremonton area, and had a naturally competitive take on Malad.  Beyond that, the couple had a lot going on at the time they first moved to town.  “It was a rough first year, because he was trying to finish his degree and teach.  And we had a little baby at the time,” Lamona says. Nonetheless, as time moved on and the two became part of the town, their feelings toward it changed.  Eventually, the Bennetts ended up with twelve children, all of whom were raised in Malad and graduated from Malad High School.  

One thing the Bennetts are known for in Malad is their commitment to bringing music to the valley, and that started at home.  In the Bennet house “there was no choice—you were in band, you were in choir, you were in swing choir, you were in pep band.  Even if you were in sports, you were in something musical, that was life,” Ralph says.  

Of the Bennett’s twelve children, none of them has followed in the music teacher path, but there are a number of teachers, three police officers, two nurses, and a “full gamut” of other roles.  Teddy has recently moved back to town to teach at the middle school.

Ralph retired as the band and choir (“and guitar and driver’s ed and whatever else they needed”) teacher in Malad in 2016 after 43 years at the schools.  Lamona was his aid for the last fifteen years of his tenure.  

Lamona’s name comes from her father, who named her after King Lamoni in the Book of Mormon.  He ran a church welfare farm in Michigan before receiving a job offer at Cornell University at a research farm which took the family to Trumansburg, north of Ithaca, where she graduated high school.  The town was around the same size as Malad, and about 60 miles from Palmyra where her family participated in the Hill Cumorah pageant for many years.

Traditions have always been important to both of them, and Malad has given them its share.

“For forty-three years, Ralph and I were IN the parade with the band on the float.  And of course, a lot of times our kids were on the float with us because they were in band.”  They recalled a time when many of their kids were on the float at once, including young Brayden who was in elementary school at the time.  “He was doing the cowbell on the float, just banging on it the whole way,” Ralph remembers.

“Malad’s got some great traditions.  Our family always gets together for the fireworks, which is always a great display.  They used to have it up to where the elementary is, until a firework went awry…” Ralph says.  “We like that, we like the parade.  One thing I could do without is the cannonade at six o’clock in the morning.”  Ralph is somewhat convinced that Doug Crowther, who he works with, specifically chooses the corner outside his window “to make sure one goes off there.”

One tradition the family started is to cook a dutch oven meal for the Fourth.  Although they usually are not able to have all the kids in town at once (“they’re scattered all around form Mesa, Arizona to Pasco, Washington), they always do have quite a few kids and grandkids on hand for the holiday.  “One year we decided not to get the dutch ovens going, because it was too hot,” Lamona says.  “And the kids all said, ‘no,no—we’ll do it!’” Ralph finishes.  “So I guess that stuck!”

The couple will be riding in their oldest son’s Mustang for the parade, and he will be driving it.  Ralph David, their son, is named for Ralph Louis, who was named for Ralph Junior (Ralph’s dad) who was Ralph Alden, and Ralph David’s son is Ralph Tyson.  “A lot of Ralphs in the family,” he says.  “Just remember Ralph and you’ve got us all.”

Despite officially retiring from the music programs at school, this summer the Bennett’s have dozens of music lessons scheduled with individual students, teaching band instruments, organ, piano, guitar, and strings.  Ralph is currently working with a student who wants to learn to play a 1911 WWI bugle, as just one of this summer’s projects.  

Ralph and Lamona have also been involved in Scouting for many decades.  When Ralph first took the job in Malad, he was staying in the basement of the principal, Phil Gillis’ house, who was the bishop at the time.  That summer, they didn’t have anyone to take the boys to Scout Camp, so the bishop asked him “Hey, you’re free—can you go?”  And that’s how he started in scouting.  He stayed in for many years, until becoming a Varsity leader, and running a combined Troop.  “We were spitting Eagles out right and left.”  He has worked with the district in a number of capacities.  He stopped scouting when he was called into the Elder’s Quorum, but continues to have great affection for the program.  Lamona worked as a Cub Scout leader for many years herself. 

Ralph was released last July after five years as the third ward bishop.  “It was a very choice calling.  I got to know people on a level you don’t normally get to know people.  And I found out there are so, so many good people.”

As for Lamona, she is proof of the well-known fact that if you learn how to play the organ you have a lifelong church calling.  “I’ve been the ward organist is some form since I was sixteen!” Lamona laughs.  “The bishop asked me one Sunday—you’ve been doing this a long time, right?  And I said ‘Yeah, I’ll probably be doing this until I fall off the bench!’”

Currently, she is the primary chorister, which “is the best job in the church.  I absolutely love working with those kids.”  She has also been the young women’s president, the Relief Society president, and many other positions over the years.  

“We love Malad.  As we’ve grown here, we’ve decided it’s been a great place to raise our family.  Our kids were carriers for the Idaho State Journal for years, and learned how to work, and manage money.  They also worked moving pipe for farmers and again, they are all still hard workers to this day,” Lamona says.  

Ralph explains that he has been offered jobs in Utah teaching several times, but told them that “no, this is where I want to be.  The music department here, they care.  They are in it for the kids.  There is no where I wanted my kids raised but here.”

In Ralph and Lamona’s opinion, the teachers are special in Malad, and so is the town.  “By the way, we do have our burial plots purchased at the cemetery here, and that’s saying a lot coming from a Tremonton boy,” Ralph says.  “Of course, we don’t plan on using them anytime soon!”  he adds. 

“I was never going to live in Idaho, and I was never going to marry a farmer,” Lamona says.  “I definitely didn’t marry a farmer—I’m more of a farmer than he is.  But I did change my mind about Idaho.”

In addition to everything else, Ralph has been the director of the Community Chorus since its inception in 1973, other than some time off to finish his Masters degree, and is still with it after fifty years.  This year, he will be joining the Malad Valley Mens Welsh Chorus, which will be featured at the Welsh Festival.  

Make your way down to the parade this year and give the Bennetts a wave as they ride by, for once not on the band float but in comfort and a well-earned place of honor!