Born and raised in Cicero, Illinois, Tyra was the only child of first-generation Polish-American parents who were employed by Western Electric's nearby Hawthorne Works.

In 1971, Tyra earned his Ph.D in Music Education from the University of Michigan under the auspices of Allen Britton, Emil Holz, and long-time Director of Bands, William Revelli.

Upon his honorable discharge in late 1957 - followed by a brief teaching assignment at Morton College[2] in his hometown of Cicero - Tyra joined the Louisiana State University faculty in the Fall of 1958, serving as an assistant to the Director of Bands L. Bruce Jones.

[4] Satisfying the constant demand for new musical content on the LSU gridiron was a small cadre of aspiring student composers and arrangers which included Bill Conti.

In 2002, Plank passed the leadership mantle to Scott Boerma, ending an era that spanned over 38 years of EMU Band history.

For beginning bands, Tyra wrote a series of compositions that he (whimsically) titled Wholey Hymn, Modal March, Pentatonic Polka, Quartal Caper, and Polytonal Parade.

His Two Gaelic Folk Songs (1964) - an arrangement of the two Irish patriotic tunes Molly Malone and Wearing of the Green in the 20th-century classical music idiom - remains in the standard repertoire for many intermediate band programs.

These compositions - integral to modern EMU band tradition - reflect the expertise he developed in writing for low brass voices while serving at the U.S. Navy School of Music.

As part of Northwestern University's early 1950s efforts to revitalize its school hymn (Quaecumque Sunt Vera), then Director-of-Bands John Paynter, [15] recruited Tyra - at the time an undergraduate music major, trumpet player and staff assistant for the Wildcat Band - to craft English words to replace the hymn's traditional Latin verse.

The earliest known recorded performance of their resulting collaboration - renamed Alma Mater (University Hymn) [16] - was made on October 3, 1953, by the Northwestern Glee Club.

Following his 1989 retirement from the Crane School of Music, Tyra relocated to Atlanta, Georgia where he would spend his remaining years living nearby his daughters and their families.