One year ago this week, I was saying goodbye to a 28-year career as a public school music teacher.
If you really want to get technical about it, it was more like a 45-year career in education: getting up, going to school, moving whenever a bell rings, from kindergarten until the last day of the twenty-eighth year of service. Some would call it being institutionalized, but I rather enjoyed the rhythms of the daily schedule. I knew as I walked out the doors of Tallassee High School that I would miss that part of it, and certainly the pomp and pageantry of small-town high school life. I also knew I’d never enjoy lunchroom delicacies like the crispito ever again.
An offer to come talk to Faulkner University was made last year by Joey Wiginton, a Tallassee resident, businessman and mayoral candidate today but for 39 years a member of the administrative team at Faulkner.
Wiginton got me talking with various department heads at Faulkner, including Dr. Art Williams, who is the Chairman of the Fine Arts Department. Dr. Art and I go way back, nearly 35 years, to our time as students at Troy University. Art was our Drum Major, and I served as Band Captain, for the “Sound of the South” band program under legendary bandmaster Dr. Johnny Long.
Faulkner University made an offer. They wanted to hire me as an admissions recruiter dedicated to building up the band program at the University. The opportunity was exciting – after all, I had spent nearly my entire career watching local legends like Jerry Cunningham and Robby Glasscock building the music empire at Tallassee. There is no other 4-A school in the state of Alabama with anything close to what Tallassee enjoys when it comes to choir and band. And yet, I was ready for a new challenge at this stage of life, and Faulkner came through with a change of scenery.
Beginning in July of 2024, I crisscrossed the state spreading the word about our $16,000 band scholarship, which is 70% off the price of tuition. This is the best music scholarship in the southeast, without a doubt. Over the course of the past ten months, I have visited 54 high school campuses in our state and have served as a clinician, adjudicator, and guest speaker at dozens of them. Along with the 54 high schools, I have also shown up for college fairs, career nights, band competitions, conventions, music festivals, and everything in between, all the while campaigning for Faulkner.
We began the year with 17 band members, and as of the last week of school we have gotten 47 students to sign the dotted line and become members of the 2025 Faulkner Band – which will bring us above 60 members for the first time since before Covid, while also more than tripling the size of the band.
My point in discussing this is not to brag on this achievement. Rather, I want to express how much my spirit has been lifted by the exposure to all these other students and band directors, and how they have allowed me to observe their band rooms over the course of this year. I have heard many new rehearsal techniques worth implementing, and listened to bands both large and small beautifully performing quality literature. I have visited schools in which the band is so important, the entrance to the building has portraits not of the principals who have served there but of the band directors. Conversely, I have visited school bands playing in a disused classroom because their school never saw fit to build a band room.
Everywhere I have been, I have looked back in astonishment that I was ever fortunate enough to have served at Tallassee, a place where music has had such importance. It was a real honor to have served there for so long and to now be mentioned among those who spent many years as a part of the program. Having said that, I am now at a University where we offer over 60 degree programs and with a student body that is growing with every passing year, and can see that we have the opportunity to grow this music program in a major way via these outstanding scholarships.
So, if you or someone you love wants to continue playing in the band, please have them email mbird@faulkner.edu or visit myfaulkner.org!
Michael Bird is a music teacher (and recruiter!) for Faulkner University.
