Double your moment of fun. Double your delight.
Tallassee High School band director Dr. Roby Glasscock is having a bit of a twin moment. Except he is not a twin. But Glasscock now teaches at both Faulkner University and Tallassee High School.
For 20 years Glasscock has led the band in Tallassee and he is also lecturing at Faulkner this year as he plans to retire from Tallassee at the end of the 2024-25 school year.
“I’m finishing out the school year at Tallassee,” Glasscock said. “If things work out, I will transition to Faulkner next year.”
In the meantime, Glasscock is full-time at Tallassee and teaches from 3:40 to 5 p.m. three days a week at Faulkner. He will be with the Tallassee band at its performances and the Faulkner band when it has home performances Saturday.
Glasscock’s recruitment to Faulkner took many long conversations, but he had been looking at a retirement plan.
“In my conversations with them, I told them I can’t leave just yet,” Glasscock said. “But I sure would love to work with them.”
Glasscock’s daughter Kinsley is a senior and in her second year as drum major at Tallassee.
“My son wants me to stay for him, but that would be another six years,” Glasscock said. “I was like, ‘I love you buddy, but I can’t do it.’”
Glasscock’s musical roots start in Elmore County. After graduating Holtville then Troy University, , he went to Albany, Georgia for six months. But home was calling and so was Tallassee’s Southside Middle School.
“One of the band directors who had been at Tallassee called me and said, ‘We got a middle school position open up,’” Glasscock said.
After four years at Southside, Glasscock had his classroom packed up. He thought he was heading to his high school alma mater but another plan came about.
“I was ready to go to Holtville,” Glasscock said. “My high school band director was retiring and I thought the job was mine. It just so happened the band director (at Tallassee) moved to another school. I couldn’t pass up the money. It was also a better situation.”
Glasscock has made many memories the last 20 years at Tallassee High School. He has shared his love of music with his children, and he has also seen students grow as the band took trips to perform in places like New York, Chicago, San Antonio and Fort Worth, Texas.
Glasscock bonded with students on the long trips. The one to the Big Apple was 24 hours each way in a charter bus with only three stops. The trips also afford Glasscock some of his best memories with students as they often traveled at night when passing through or getting into a large city.
“All the lights would be on,” Glasscock said. “I just loved hearing the kids gasp knowing it might be the only chance some of them would ever have to do something like that.”