Lambros Pappas, teacher who loved art, music; at 76

Lambros Alex Pappas knew the power of art and knew how to share it.

More than once, Mr. Pappas, who taught art for 40 years, would show up at a family member's church with an armload of artwork to decorate for a festival. He played organ at his own church for decades. And he directed his creativity at helping other teachers teach better -- when he wasn't selling jewelry at the Chestnut Hill Mall.

Mr. Pappas died Oct. 14 in Brigham and Woman's Hospital. He was 76 and had been battling melanoma and other cancer for the last five years.

''He loved working with children," said his wife of 41 years, Georgia (Manolukas) Pappas. ''He was constantly channeling their imaginations into projects to take home to their families."

Mr. Pappas was born in Chicopee Falls and had lived in Jamaica Plain for the past 23 years. He graduated from Boston University with a bachelor's degree in sociology and anthropology, and attended Yale University from 1950 to 1953 for graduate studies in art and anthropology. He served in the US Army Medical Corps as a psychiatric social worker from 1953 to 1961, and worked for a time as an interior designer.

He married in 1963 and began his teaching career in 1964 at Dearborn Middle School in Roxbury. He then taught sixth grade at the Taft School in Brighton for a year before returning to Dearborn. After 24 years there, he left to teach at the Eliot School in the North End for seven years; He finished his career with nine years at the James Michael Curley Elementary School in Jamaica Plain. He also taught art and music at the all-girls' Winsor School, and mentored student teachers at the Massachusetts College of Art.

''He was a wonderfully amusing man who loved the kids and connected with them," said Kathleen McKenna, whose son was a student of Mr. Pappas's at the Curley school. ''He was an incredible, eloquent man" who would walk out of school every day with the students. ''He was a guy who really loved what he did."

Mr. Pappas also worked evenings and holidays selling jewelry at the Shreve, Crump & Low jewelry store at the Chestnut Hill Mall for the past 24 years.

''One of his customers [said last night] that he was one of the last proper Bostonians," said a nephew, John Manolukas of Youngstown, Ohio. ''He knew how to be a Bostonian. [He] always had a way about him that was so civil."

Mr. Pappas, who aimed to give his students ''visual literacy" by teaching them math, English, and history along with art, won many teaching awards, including the prestigious Golden Apple award for excellence in teaching, and the Boston Higher Education Partnership Service Award, for his work fostering relationships between the Boston public schools and Boston-area colleges and universities. He was nominated for teacher of the year in 2004.

In 2002 he launched a program at the Curley to bring retired teachers back into classrooms -- not to help the worst students but to inspire the best.

''Usually, when you have extra people in the classroom you give them the problem kids," he said in a Boston Globe article at the time. ''But it's the main teachers who have been trained to work with those kids. Plus, we need to have some kind of vehicle to challenge" the top students.

Mr. Pappas was also a local leader of Impact II, a national organization that gives grants to teachers with innovative ideas.

''Lambros loved Impact II because it gave grants directly to the teachers," said another nephew, Nick Manolukas of Sarasota, Fla. ''He was very involved. He brought thousands and thousands of dollars into the program."

A classical music aficionado, Mr. Pappas always played music in his classrooms, and for 24 years he performed at weddings, funerals, and special events at the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of New England, in Roxbury.

Of all of Mr. Pappas's creative outlets, his family was most impressed by the times he flew to Ohio to deliver artwork to hang in church hallways.

One year there were giant worry beads and urns directing the crowds at the annual bazaar. Another year, for another sister-in-law's event, there were giant mosaics.

''I remember him pulling out amazing art pieces. There were hundreds of them, and everything he brought in was made out of colored construction paper and cut into little fragments," said Manolukas. ''I was only a little boy and I was totally blown away. I learned the power of art.

Besides his wife and nephews, Mr. Pappas leaves six other nephews and two nieces.

A funeral was held Oct. 20 in the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of New England.