Edward(Ed) W. Wolfe II (September 24, 1946 – January 23, 2026) known for his love of music, teaching, and trains, was celebrated by all who knew and loved him this past Monday, February 23rd. His memory is carried on through his wife Nancy Wolfe, his younger brother David Wolfe, his fellow brass ensemble-ists, and his students– the very people he considered his own children.
Ed Wolfe’s journey started in Albuquerque, New Mexico when he was born in 1946. He began his interest in music when he was taught the piano at age five, and he eventually moved to the trumpet in fourth grade beginning his love of brass instruments. Mr. Wolfe eventually gained his bachelors in Music Education at the University of New Mexico, finding work as a delivery truck driver for a bakery and by playing the trumpet, electric guitar, and upright bass at a nightclub. This was until he found a job teaching at different schools in Albuquerque, eventually moving to California, and then finally finding a job at San Dimas High School.
It was here that he met the love of his life and future wife, Nancy Wolfe. She was a new choir teacher at the time they met, in the SDHS band room, and on New Years of 1980, they began dating. Knowing almost immediately it was forever, the two became engaged in March of that same year, and were married August 16th, 1980, only five months later. After a few years, Mr. and Mrs. Wolfe both ended up working at Lone Hill Middle School, him as the band director and her as the choir director, known famously as the “Wolfe Pack”. It could be said that music and teaching was so ingrained in his life it was a part of his marriage.
“Ed didn’t just teach music,” Gloria Beckford, the mother of Lance Beckford and friend of Ed, recalled in her eulogy. “He taught his students how to live with passion and rhythm. He poured his heart into every note leaving lasting harmony in all lives”
Although those here at San Dimas High School who have had the honor to know Ed Wolfe have become fewer every year, the number of those who have been impacted by him in some way grow every year. His name is on the music the band plays– it’s HIS rendition of many of our songs that are played at football games. He is the reason the band room is where it is, and why the old auto shop didn’t go to waste. Without him, we wouldn’t have Mr. Beckford as a teacher, and maybe not even Ms. Leyva at Lone Hill. It was his San Dimas Brass Ensemble that played every Christmas for the whole city, and under his conduction.
Ed Wolfe has won an outstanding amount of awards in his lifetime– an amount too absurd to list on this page– and are including but ESPECIALLY not limited to: “MENC Nationally Registered Music Educator” – 1991, “Who’s Who in Entertainment” – 1992-1993, San Dimas Community Hero – 2007, San Dimas “Volunteer of the Year” – 2010, San Dimas Juvenile Justice Commission “Youth Service Award” – 1984, 1993, 2001, and the the California Alliance for Jazz 2014 Hall of Fame.
The true amount in which he achieved could never be expressed entirely, but his legacy lives on in what he did through his students and the community. A huge example of this has been Lance Beckford. Wolfe treated Beckford with love all his time as a teacher and gave him the amount of patience that he needed to become the successful musician and teacher that he now is. It was “because of Ed Wolfe picking me up, coming down to my level” Beckford shared, that “I stand here before you today”. Lance Beckford shares the same grace he was once given by his teacher with his own students today, continuing the legacy Ed Wolfe started in his own way.
Ed Wolfe is in heaven now with his mother Dr. Mary Ellen Wolfe, who he loved dearly, and who, in his brother David Wolfe’s words, said to Ed upon meeting him in heaven: “What the heck took you so long?”.
