I titled this "I never stopped..." because after graduating from Cal Poly, SLO, I became the band director at Helix H.S. in La Mesa (near San Diego) for 14 years. I basically kept living the life of high school band all of that time, and believe me, I re-lived lots of Buena memories all the time.
Kind of funny, I received Rhonda's email while I was on a break judging the Arcadia Festival of Bands-- I was in between the band review and the field show. I was judging drum majors, which was pretty much head trip in itself-- my first time judging at Arcadia and judging the caption that I won in 1985. This after having my own band march through that same competition zone 14 times. And that's the day Rhonda emails me.
I currently am the "Program Manager, K-12 Music" for the San Diego Unified School District, which basically means I supervise over 120 music teachers in San Diego. I am still a band director one night a week at Grossmont Community College. I like what I do and don't miss the crazy high school band director life style too much. I judge almost every weekend in the fall, so I still get my fill of marching band.
Obviously, the Buena Band experience was pretty huge for me, as I made it a career. I learned how to put a parade band together not in college, but at Buena. So Dave Wheeler was a positive impact on my life. I know that Tony Aviles asked for his contact info, and while I kept in touch with him up until maybe five years ago, I don't seem to have up to date information any longer. If I've done my math correctly, he should have just turned 64. Crazy, huh? Many of us had Bob Barnum at Balboa-- he passed away only a couple of years ago.
It's been nice reading these posts, and now that the crazy holiday season is passing, maybe others like me will have the time to write something. Thanks for Rhonda and Tami for getting this started.
Russ Sperling
2 comments:
So good to hear from you Russ! I've kept up on some of your accomplishments via the internet. So proud of what you've done! Miss you, and hope we can keep in better contact via the blog, and/or email, phone, snail mail....whatever. :).
LUV YA,
Rhonda
P.S. Mom's here for the holidays, and sends her love!
RUSS!!!!! WOW!!!! How cool it is to hear about you and what you have done!! I'm so happy/proud to hear all you have done! Great to hear from you! Must be so very crazy to be doing what your doing? So do you get to judge Buena at any time during your fall judging season? How are they doing these days?
Looking forward to learning more about you and life!
Take care and have a wonderful New Years!!!!
Tami
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