college

In 7th grade, attending a band clinic at Morehead State University, I made the definite decision that I wanted to be a band director. No one on either side of my family had been to college, so I was clueless in many aspects of what it would take.

My band director, James Copenhaver, pulled me aside one day to explain:

You want to be a band director. That means you’re going to need to go to college, but your family can’t pay for you to go (My parents were divorced and my polio-surviving mother was raising five children.)

Your grades are okay, but not good enough for academic scholarships. You’re not athletic, so that is out.

The best chance for you to get to college is to become good enough on that clarinet that by the time you graduate, a college will pay for you to come. You’ve got four years.

It worked.