KAREN MELLINGER POORMAN, President
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Karen Mellinger Poorman has been President of the South Jersey Area Wind Ensemble since its inception in 1997 and also plays clarinet with the band. While attending Council Rock High School in Newtown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, she received the John Philip Sousa Band Award and participated in County, District, and All-State Bands.

Karen received her degree in Education from Lebanon Valley College, where she studied music with Dr. James M. Thurmond and Frank Stachow. She later attended Cornell University for graduate study. She taught in Middletown, Pennsylvania, and in the Pleasantville, New Jersey Schools, as well as teaching gifted and talented students in the Somers Point Schools.

For 14 years, Karen coached the band front and assisted with the marching band at Southern Regional High School. She has also served as a color guard consultant for numerous area high schools and as woodwind advisor for the Egg Harbor Township High School Marching Band. For ten years, she was a staff member for the American Music Honor Bands European tours.

Karen also has more than 25 years of experience as a Real Estate Broker, sales trainer, and manager. She is past Vice President, Program Chair and Scholarship Chair for the Atlantic County Branch of the American Association of University Women and Past Vice President of the Atlantic Woman’s Charitable Organization. She continues to teach clarinet privately.

Since its founding, the South Jersey Area Wind Ensemble has received the John Philip Sousa Foundation’s Sudler Silver Scroll Award, commissioned 14 works, and performed more than 150 concerts. Performances have included appearances at Stockton University, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Temple University, Longwood Gardens, the Association of Concert Bands Convention in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey, and three New Jersey Music Educators Association conventions.

In 2024, SJAWE was awarded The American Prize in Band/Wind Ensemble Performance and is currently nominated for the 2026 award. Karen also organized SJAWE’s specialty ensembles, made up of members of the full band, and continues to move the organization forward with a vision of excellence in musical performance and creative music enrichment for the arts.

 Karen is married to Ronald Poorman. They have two daughters, Melinda Sweeney and her husband, Michael, and Jennifer Hodgson and her husband, Keith, and two grandchildren, Justin and Jordan Sweeney.