Special trombone highlights instrument donations to school
Doug Guy is going to give 94 year olds a bad name.
For more than a year, Mr. Guy and I have been e-mailing each other. At first his e-mails from Maine were inquisitive: “Do you know Hazel Hall?” After I answered in the affirmative, he mentioned he worked for Ross and Hazel Hall as a junior in high school.
He later asked me if I knew the history of scouting in Sandpoint. When I mentioned some of the background was sketchy, he regaled me with information for a few months.
When I made the mistake of calling him Mr. Guy, he responded through e-mail almost immediately that I shouldn’t refer to him as Mr. Guy: “ Please let’s be on a first name basis — Mr. Guy makes me feel old!”
Doug (see how fast I learned?) last visited his hometown of Sandpoint 21 years ago. The 1933 SHS grad’s father was a dentist here who used a foot-powered drill and made dentures from vulcanized rubber.
Doug’s father also had the first X-ray machine in the region.
“There were exposed copper wires everywhere on the X-ray machine and I am sure it was dangerous,” he said.
Doug was also on the Monticola staff at SHS and remembers pasting photos onto pages as well as the butcher block paper covers.
“I remember when Ponderay was a one-horse, one-grocery store town,” he said.
It was great catching up with my e-mail friend, Mr., oops make that, Doug Guy.
Bee feature correspondent Dave Gunter wrote the classic “too much of a good thing” story a few weeks ago.
The good news was the enrollment in elementary school band program has the highest participation rate in the state. The bad news was, many students were sitting in class reading band books instead of playing because of a shortage of instruments.
Worse — with instrument rentals costing as much as $48 a month, the price is too high for some families to even rent instruments.
Now here is the great news: As of Oct. 18, the day Gunter’s story appeared in the Bee, there have been a total of:
• 5 flutes
• 6 clarinets
• 1 saxophone
• 4 trumpets
• 1 coronet
• 2 trombones
And four or five other instruments that are being located or cleaned before being donated.
Every student who needed an instrument now has one because of Gunter’s story, according to elementary bands director Greg Schuh.
There are even a few extra instruments to loan out if more students join band or if an instrument needs repair.
One of the more interesting donations came from Jim Ramsey.
“The story of the trombone goes back to my early years growing up in a small rural town in northwestern Iowa. My parents gave me my first instrument — a fairly old trombone when I decided to learn to play it in the fourth grade. Without any real instruction, I learned the rudiments of the instrument and when I entered high school decided I really wanted to play in the award-winning high school concert band. I tried to get into it, but was turned down.
“I remember sitting in study hall and hearing the band practicing Rossini’s William Tell Overture and wishing with all my heart that I could be in the auditorium playing with them. Knowing how much I wanted it, my mother made a special trip to meet with the band director. As a result, miraculously I was invited to join the band.
“It was in 1947, my first year in band that my father and mother bought me a beautiful new trombone — produced by Conn in Elkhardt, Indiana, reputed to be the premium maker of trombones and trumpets in the United States. The new horn helped me considerably, and when a new band director — Jim White — arrived next year, White gave me a weekly one-on-one lesson on the trombone after band practice. By my senior year, I made first chair (there were four trombones in the section) and traveled with the band to the district and state competitions throughout Iowa. (We won first place in our divisions). I also played trombone solos in the competitions, winning a first prize at district.
“Also while playing in the band, I found a lifetime appreciation for classical music. Our director had the band playing Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Cesar Franck symphonies as well as tone poems and overtures. This was the era of the big jazz bands in America, and I traveled to hear such greats as Stan Kenton, Tommy Dorsey, and Harry James, and the new Glen Miller band play in person.
“Later in college, at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, I played in a Dixieland jazz band—improvising, without music, such classics as “When the Saints Go Marching In” and “The St. James Infirmary Blues.”
“To cap off my trombone experiences, in 1962 — while working in public relations for United Airlines — I accompanied news media members to the premier of the new movie “The Music Man” starring Robert Preston and Shirley Jones held in composer Meredith Willson’s hometown of Mason City, Iowa. And watching from the sidewalk the morning after the movie premier, I observed Willson leading a large assembly of high school bands in a parade down the main street of Mason City playing the musical’s popular “76 Trombones” song.
This story will accompany a very special trombone.
David Keyes is publisher of the Daily Bee.