Making her voice heard: Sangeetha Rayapati leads Moline as mayor, students as a professor

By day, she leads the voice program at Augustana College in Rock Island. Her students know her as a professor. But she has another job that requires her voice and a different title: She's the mayor of Moline. 

Rayapati grew up in West Chester, Pennsylvania, about 30 miles west of Philadelphia. From an early age, she knew she wanted to help people. She also knew she had a passion for music. Eventually, that brought her to the Midwest. At Valparaiso University in Indiana, she double-majored, earning a Bachelor of Nursing and a Bachelor of Music.

"I think I'd always been drawn to helping professions, but when I got really heavily involved in music, I just wanted to know more and do more," she said. "So I dedicated myself to that, and I was able to bring my nursing and arts interests together because of the job I have here at the school."

Before her interests aligned in the Quad-Cities, they came together in Minneapolis. After graduating from Valparaiso, she began her career as a nurse, working in the Huntington's Disease Unit at University Good Samaritan nursing home.

"That's where they housed the creative arts therapies, so I was constantly exposed to the fact that this particular skilled nursing home was investing in those therapies to help their patients," she said. "I would see a music therapist come and do group therapy there while I was at work."

During the three years she worked as a nurse, Rayapati was earning her Master and Doctorate of Musical Arts degrees from the University of Minnesota. She then decided to make the transition from nurse to teacher.

The move may be unorthodox, but Rayapati said she saw the classroom as another way to take care of people.

"I was attracted to the freedom of creativity and the different type of work schedule," she said. "I just had a passion for wanting to bring out the best in my students and helping them reach their full potential. That became the passion. You're caring for humans, but you're doing it through teaching."

In 2001, Augustana offered her a job as professor of music, and she quickly accepted. Rayapati had no doubts about where she wanted to be. Shown her studio at Augie, she recognized it. In high school, she had visited for a summer music program.

"I came as a pianist, but I took voice lessons, and I now teach in the studio where I had my first lesson," she said. "I felt like I had come full circle in the place where it all started — where my potential was unleashed."

Turns out, that potential was just being tapped into. After a few years of teaching, Rayapati decided she needed to do more for her community, so she ran for the Moline-Coal Valley School Board.

During her four-year term that began in 2017, she served as vice-president for the first two years and president for the last two. Her propensity for finding a challenge and running toward it, she said, comes naturally.

"I think it comes from being raised Lutheran, where you are raised to be a community servant and be a leader. I saw a need for good leadership," she said. "When I saw an opportunity ... that was aligned with my interest in education and helping people fulfill their potential, I put all my tools to work and said I would run for school board."

Her tools, she said, were learned mostly in the classroom. As a teacher, she encourages and supports students to find their passion. By taking on positions within the community, she is able to flex the same muscle in a different setting.

"It's really about helping folks fulfill their full potential. I have been very pleased that I have been able to have that symmetry in the things that I do," she said.

One key element is collaboration. As a nurse, she worked with other medical staff to help patients. As a teacher, she works with students to help them evolve. As a community leader, she worked with other elected officials toward a common goal. But her training for all of it has been in motion for most of her life. 

"As a musician, you are trained to be a collaborator," she said. "Working with others to get everything done is part of how I manage any of the times where it can get overwhelming."

In late 2020, with her term on the school board coming to a close, she upped the tempo of life and found a way to use her voice in a broader way. That led her to the steps of Moline City Hall, where she announced her bid for mayor. 

In the April 2021 election, Rayapati defeated incumbent Stephanie Acri, earning 61% of the vote. Her motivation for running was simple: Multiple department head positions were open, and the city needed a strong person to get them filled and to lead the staff.

"The staff had been decimated in many ways, and you can't provide services and move forward without the people to do the work," she said.

Two years into her post, Rayapati said she's happy with the progress the city is making.

"We have turned a corner. We are moving forward, and there are a lot of positive developments," she said.

As a woman in leadership, Rayapati acknowledges moments of feeling overwhelmed. At Augustana, she oversees eight professors. With the city, she looks out for thousands of people. But she uses the tools she learned in her first voice lesson at Augustana: Big things happen when you make your voice heard.

"Those of us in these kinds of roles understand it comes with the territory, and we end up getting a lot of good advice on how to deal with that ... because there is a solidarity in that," she said.