(11-11-25) Pettisville High School choir teacher Duane Beck — once praised for mentoring “The Voice” champions Girl Named Tom — has been forced to retire after an investigation found he engaged in inappropriate communications with students.

Duane Beck

Beck will use his accrued sick time and officially retire on May 31, but a separation agreement shows he is barred from school property without the superintendent’s permission.

The Pettisville Board of Education approved that agreement on Nov. 5. Beck had been on administrative leave since Sept. 23, the day the district opened its investigation.

BIO

Duane Beck is in his thirty-fifth year of teaching and his twenty-seventh year of teaching at his alma mater, Pettisville High School, where he directs the junior high and high school choirs and teaches theater, class voice, and elementary music. 

Duane’s school responsibilities include directing the high school musical and sixth grade musical.  He also serves as junior class advisor.

Duane enjoys directing the choir at Zion Mennonite Church and leading music at Peace Mennonite Fellowship, both in Archbold, Ohio. Duane served as the artistic director of The Junior Choral Society of Northwest Ohio for fifteen years. 

Prior to teaching at Pettisville, Duane taught junior high and high school choir at Eastside Junior/Senior High School in Butler, Indiana, for seven years.  He earned a B.A. in Music Education from Goshen College in 1991 and an M.A. in Gifted Education from Bowling Green State University in 2001.  Duane is a member of NAfMe and ACDA. 

He was honored to serve as guest conductor for the Southeast Ohio Children’s Chorus Festival and the Indiana/Michigan Mennonite Youth Choir Festival.

Duane and his wife Deana reside in the country near Pettisville. They have four children—Clara, Gabriel, Justice, and Haiden and a son-in-law, Garrett.