Band Directors
Tom Rhodes was a Texas bandmaster who felt strongly about the need for sheet music dealers to work closely with school band directors. Along with two partners, Tom established the RBC Music Company in 1988. Within the year, they had created a small music publishing company under the same name. His...
Al Sturchio has served the Texas Bandmasters Association for over 25 years as director and also as president. His passion and unbelievable energy has been a large part of the success of the association’s annual meeting and exhibit fair. The yearly program includes sessions and clinics as well as an...
Gary DeShazo began his musical career as a Texas bandmaster and then worked with James Caldwell, the founder of Caldwell Music. With a great understanding of the educators’ needs, Gary soon developed lasting relationships with band directors over the entire state and beyond. In 1969, he bought...
Harold Burt was just about 3 years old when a musician from a traveling circus came to his North Carolina town and sold his parents a clarinet for young Harold. His life has been filled with music ever since. In 1950, he established the first high school band in Cary, NC and he served as the...
Don Wilson always enjoyed being around music, as a player, teacher, retailer, and as an award-winning baton twirler. He opened his music store in 1956 with the dream of running his business, raising his family, and staying close to the music he loved. In 2006, he reflected that his dreams did come...
John Keal was one of the very few who attended the Conn band instrument repair school in Elkhart, enrolling in the school just after World War II. The program only lasted a few years, but it provided the passion he was missing as a salesman outside the music industry. He returned to his father’s...
Jim Leonard was first and foremost a band director. It was the job he always dreamed of as a child and the job for which he gained the love and respect from tens of thousands of students. Along the way, he saw the need of providing quality band services to the school directors he knew, which...
Les Ray was a well spoken advocate for music education. As the founder of ASM Music Schools in Florida, he created a respected educational program that includes some 2,500 students each week. He had strong feelings about the importance of the process in learning to play a musical instrument. Mr....
Floyd Hershberger along with his wife Joyce had the dream of opening their own small music store and running it as a family business. The store was established in 1956 in Nebraska and is now being run by their son Brad. Along the way they were witnesses to the good old days of the Beatles and the...
Ron Griggs dreamed of being a band teacher as a child. His career as a teacher was rewarding as he was often stopped in the street by former students who would remark on how much of an important influence he had been as their band director. His teaching background proved helpful when he was hired...