The suspension of the Northwest Music Teachers Association, coinciding with the State of Oregon’s efforts to develop music education in public schools, prompted The Musicians Club of Portland to organize a statewide music teachers association in 1915, named the Oregon State Music Teachers Association. Two years later, the name was shortened to the Oregon Music Teachers Association. The OMTA was initially divided into twelve geographic districts and later expanded to fourteen. OMTA developed and maintains teacher certification and a syllabus for private music instruction. The association also publishes a newletter, Music News, and hosts an annual conference. Members of the current fourteen districts meet throughout the year, and offer performance and instructional opportunities for their students. In 1950, the OMTA joined the Music Teachers National Association.

Joan Gathercoal and her twin sister, Jean, were born in March 1932 in Salem, Oregon to Ruth Gillmore and John Reining Baines. Joan attended Oregon State College (later Oregon State University), where she met her husband, Forrest “Spike” Gathercoal. After living in Texas for several years, the couple returned to Oregon, eventually settling in Corvallis. There, Joan Gathercoal worked as a piano teacher and ran a bakery with her sister. She was a member of the Oregon Music Teachers Association and served as its president and historian. In 1998 and 2001, Gathercoal traveled to Khabarovsk, Russia, as part of the OMTA’s Russian Connection cultural exchange program. In 2016, the OMTA awarded her the Nellie Tholen Excellence in Teaching award. She died in September 2017.