DARE COUNTY — Just over two weeks after being named the 2023 Dare County Schools Teacher of the Year, beloved music teacher John Buford received a cancer diagnosis. The Outer Banks community has rallied to support him, as have his friends overseas.
When he shared his diagnosis of acute myeloid leukemia on social media on Monday, hundreds of people responded with comments sharing their love and prayers.
Friends in London started a GoFundMe to help with Buford’s medical expenses, which in less than two days had raised 1,030 pounds, or about $1,287. A local music teacher colleague started a GoFundMe Tuesday that raised nearly $600 in a day.
A local bookseller is planning a community bone marrow testing event to try to find a match for his future bone marrow transplant.
A former neighbor opened a medical expenses account for Buford at Southern Bank. People can donate to that account through any local Southern Bank branch, and no percentage is taken out for taxes or fees, according to Buford.
Reached by phone Tuesday, while awaiting his first chemotherapy treatment at Duke University Hospital in Durham, Buford said he is keeping a positive outlook.
“I’m ready for this battle,” he said. “Cancer is not welcome in this body.”
Buford expressed concern for his students, who will likely have substitute teachers for several months.
At his request, both his schools’ principals met with his students earlier this week to share news of his diagnosis, with school nurses available to answer any questions students might have.
“I’m trying to get back there; it’s where I want to be,” Buford said of his classrooms. “There’s nothing that brings me more joy than hearing kids singing.”
“He sings from his soul and his students want to be like him,” Diane Childress, principal of First Flight Middle School, wrote in her recommendation letter for Buford to be selected as district Teacher of the Year.
“Students build on their skills and become fluent professional singers who take risks, learn from feedback and ultimately, take pride in their work as a collective team of singers,” she wrote. “He does what he does each day for kids, not for recognition, and it’s why his colleagues voted for him as our Teacher of the Year.”
“It’s hard to find someone here on the Outer Banks whose life hasn’t been touched by John Buford,” said Hollie Writtenberry, a Dare County Schools music colleague and friend of 13 years.
She taught with Buford at the middle school for seven years and has continued collaborating with him since her transfer to Manteo Elementary School. They have also worked together through their music ministry positions, his at Holy Redeemer By The Sea Catholic Parish and Writtenberry’s at Outer Banks Presbyterian Church, she said.
After Buford shared his diagnosis with her, “I knew right away that the Outer Banks community would rally around him,” she said. “John has made such an impact in this community musically, spiritually and philanthropically.”
Acute myeloid leukemia is a rare blood cancer most often affecting men and older adults, with the median age of 68 for diagnosis, according to the nonprofit Leukemia Research Foundation’s website.
Acute means fast-growing, according to the nonprofit American Cancer Society’s website.
Buford, 53, said he is considered young and will have a month of aggressive treatments at Duke before heading home for recovery and further treatments as needed.
The swiftness with which all the testing required for his diagnosis happened felt like “a miracle,” he noted. “It just seems like I’ve got angels watching out for me in a way I can’t even understand.”
Hired as the music teacher at First Flight Elementary School in 2005, Buford shifted to the upper grades following another teacher’s retirement. Since 2016, he has taught chorus at both First Flight Middle School and First Flight High School, plus string instruments at the high school.
Because of that, he has taught some students “from kindergarten through their graduation day,” and he regularly teaches students from sixth through twelfth grades.
“I was really concerned about how the students who have known me a long time would handle the news,” Buford said. “That’s been on my mind, but I think they’re doing ok.”
He has received “letters of support” from students as well as messages from some of his former, graduated students, praising the impact he had on them.
“You have left the biggest impact on my life and so many others,” he said, reading one such message aloud. “Keep your head up and stay strong.”
He read another: “You helped me find my voice and discover my passion for singing, and I appreciate that so much.”
Originally from Kentucky, Buford earned an undergraduate degree in music education and a graduate degree in music from Morehead State University.
His time at that university is also where he met his husband, Carl Curnutte III, 31 years ago on Sept. 8. “We haven’t been apart since,” Buford said.
Curnutte’s employer, Twiddy & Company, contributed financially to Buford’s care and also “forbid him from doing any work to take care of me,” Buford said. “They want this to be Carl’s sole priority.”
Curnutte’s former job as a costume designer for The Lost Colony originally brought the pair to Manteo for summers starting in 1993. Buford worked two and a half summers as an actor-singer in the show.
“The island and the people left an impression on me,” he noted.
After graduation, Buford’s jobs directing church choirs led him to Virginia Beach and then Newport News.
In 2004, Curnutte was hired as producer of The Lost Colony, which brought them back to the Outer Banks. Buford did marketing for the show as a side job while teaching, eventually leaving teaching for a year to do full-time marketing for the Outer Banks Hospital for a year.
“But my heart ached for the classroom, so I came right back,” he said. “I knew there was no other place in the world for me.”
Buford said he loves teaching and building personal connections to students.
“Singing is such a personal experience because it’s you putting yourself out there,” he said, noting his goal is “making people feel comfortable and accepted in my classroom on so many levels.”
“His students are beyond lucky to have John as a leader and as an inspiration,” opined Alison Fulcher, the music teacher at First Flight Elementary School who started a GoFundMe for him.
“He selflessly gives and gives to enhance the lives of his students,” Fulcher said, adding that she feels she also learns from him.
They co-taught eighth-grade chorus at the middle school for three years, and still do annual combined concerts with the elementary, middle and high school students, she said.
Charles Lansing, principal of First Flight High School, said in an email that Buford “brings tremendous passion and dedication to what he does,” both in the classroom and in performances he arranges outside the classroom.
Lansing also praised the strong relationships Buford forms, “which is why this news has had such a profound effect on our school and community. We know that Mr. Buford is ready to fight, and he knows that our entire community is behind him!”
Buford said he knows he has church choirs in Virginia and in Kitty Hawk praying for him; local community members and people across the ocean rooting for him; and his family visiting him in person from Kentucky this week.
“What I tell people is I’m holding all that close to my heart, using it to power up for this battle,” he said.
