Paint Valley concert band headed to state

BAINBRIDGE - Paint Valley High School trumpet player Casey McAllister, as a senior, has had the opportunity to see plenty of change in the school's band program during his career. The most notable — attitude.

"We're kind of always playing with a chip on our shoulder," McAllister said. "Ever since I was in eighth grade, the band's kind of been pretty small and not really thought of highly. So we're always with a chip on our shoulder ready to show the strength of our program."

That strength showed through Saturday when, for the first time in more than a decade, the school's concert band had the opportunity to participate in the Ohio Music Educators Association District 16 Large Group Adjudicated Event at Miami Trace. It made even more school history when it received a "Superior" rating that advances the school to state-level competition. The band, which has placed in the top three spots over the last two years at the annual county Battle of the Bands, was one of only five bands from the district competition to receive the top rating and move on.

In addition, Paint Valley's middle school band received an "Excellent" rating in the same district competition.

Nicholas Turon, the school's third-year band director, said the district is learning that the key to success in music, as it is in many sports programs, is building a complete program from the younger ages up through the high school level. That hasn't always been easy at Paint Valley, as McAllister recalls a time in the not-too-distant past when the school's marching band had only 10 members.

"First off, we do massive recruiting in the younger grades," Turon said. "I was able to take over fourth-grade recorder, general music, and that lets me recruit all year long. We've continuously recruited over half of every fifth-grade class into the fifth-grade band, which is huge numbers. We regularly recruit over 30.

"We take the middle school band to contests, we started having middle school night where we would take the seventh- and eighth-grade band to the football game in September to show 'Hey, this is high school band, stay in it.' We started hosting a first- and second-year players' honor band (like those that exist for middle and high school players).."

While getting the numbers up is certainly key to any program, McAllister and junior french horn player Olivia Spradlin said it has been Turon's energy and enthusiasm that have turned the attitude in the program around. Turon says it's the students' program to take ownership of and that his biggest role is to be a cheerleader for them.

"He listens to the kids," McAllister said. "He wants the kids to have ideas to put in place. We had a freshman this year write all of our dances. Last year I was a junior and I wrote all of the dances, so we're giving everyone a chance to really prove themselves because it's really important for anyone to have a voice because that's how you create this unity of people because nobody feels they can't contribute to the band."

"We definitely feed off of Mr. Turon's attitude," said Spradlin, who also offered credit to the middle school and freshmen students coming up in helping to change the culture. "Before he came, we really didn't care a lot, I guess. But when Mr. Turon came in, he told us 'Guys, you can do this. You're not as bad as you think you are. Just because you're a little school doesn't mean you can't do something Chillicothe is doing.' So we kind of went, 'Yeah, we can do this' and we went out and played our actual best, we didn't hold back at all."

The band's trip to state competition will take place in April.