L. Viola Kinney (c.1890 – 1945) was an American composer, pianist, and teacher active during the first half of the twentieth century.

She became head of the school's music department and also gave piano recitals in Sedalia and surrounding towns.

[7] Kinney's Mother’s Sacrifice is a solo piano piece for which she won second prize in the Inter-State Literary Society Original Music Contest held at Omaha, Nebraska in 1908.

(The first prize was won by Claude Minor of Lawrence, Kansas, also a student of the Western University harmony class.)

In 2009, the 100th anniversary of its publication, Mother's Sacrifice was performed in a concert at the University of West Georgia.