Bright future ahead for school music program
Robbinsville – As its first marching season under a new director draws to a close, the Black Knight band has experienced several milestones.
The band ended its semester playing a holiday music program Tuesday night, after marching in the Gatlinburg, Tenn. Christmas parade earlier in the month.
Director Amber Watkins – herself an alumna of the program – took leadership of the band at a the beginning of the school year, and has seen the program begin to grow both in numbers and in quality.
“I think that they got a lot further than I thought they would.” Watkins said. “I think they were just so primed and ready and eager to learn everything. I was worried in the beginning. It’s more like a military style.
“There’s a lot of discipline and tons of hard work and I was afraid that they might shy away from it a little bit. They went into it headlong, headstrong.”
Currently, 38 students participate in the band at Robbinsville High School and 32 at Robbinsville Middle School, with the program starting in sixth grade.
“They’re doing great,” Watkins said of the middle school band. “They’re right on track in the curriculum. I’m very particular. We play every single day and move forward.
“They should be at the Christmas section, now they’re actually past that.”
The band also took on a substantial fundraising effort, with alumni classes raising approximately $27,000 toward new uniforms. The goal was the start of the fundraiser in October was $22,000.
In total, the funds will provide 70 uniforms.
“Initially, we had shot for about 50 uniforms, but we’re also going to add in a permanent color guard uniform, and one for the drum major and potentially starting up the twirling group as well,” Watkins said.
The uniforms are currently in production. In addition, the band received substantial support from the county’s “Take One for the Team” initiative, allowing the community to make donations to an assortment of local youth organizations.
She said the Take One for the Team funds would most likely be put toward filling gaps in the band’s instrumentation.
“My main goal was the uniforms,” Watkins said. “Now my next goal is quality instruments. As we get more members, we have some gaps in instrumentation that are going to need to be filled, vibes and some of the mallet instruments are quite pricey, so we’re going to choose something and we’re gonna go for that.”
She said that being a Graham County native herself made it easier to relate to her students.
“We understand each other,” Watkins said. “No offense to anywhere else I’ve worked, I love those kids too. They’re my heart, any band kids I’ve ever had are permanently part of my family, but they didn’t understand quirky little things you might say about Snowbird, or quirky little things you might say about Santeetlah.
“The kids get it, and we have a communication that’s already set up because I’ve from here. They know what ‘you’ns’ is. “
She said that this bond with her students led to her favorite moment of the season in the Gatlinburg Christmas Parade.
“We were in Gatlinburg and all of the trailers got jackknifed up there and it was a mess,” Watkins explained. “So we had a 52-foot-long float headed through there, and we hopped out and we started running full force, throwing the cones out of the way.
“Then the cops started helping us throw the cones out of the way, so I’m running up the road and to the left, there’s the little Robbinsville band waiting on the sidewalk up there, and when they saw us, they started screaming ‘It’s Mrs. Watkins. It’s Mrs. Watkins! Oh my gosh it’s Mrs. Watkins!’ Then they started playing the theme from ‘Rocky.’ So we’re running like Wonder Woman through there.
“Just that kind of camaraderie and to know that you’re close enough to have like an inside understanding. (People) in their cars pulled out their phones.”
Watkins hopes to continue to grow both the band and choir programs, and even hopes to institute a jazz band and winter guard as numbers in the program grow.
“A lot of our goals have been met,” Watkins said. “One of my goals was to get the elementary music program up and running, so Lori Aldridge was hired as my assistant. She’s taken completely over the elementary music so she can feed those students upward with some type of foundation.
“I want them to have the same opportunities that the other schools have."