Vermilion. Kaplan high
Vermilion. Kaplan high
That's him. I still see your dad around occasionally.
Will do
So one says he was at stm and another says nowas wag ever at stm to crank up their bandreason why I ask is that I wrote their fight song and it was never played until He started the band there .anyway I'll never forget the first time hearing s band.play it.
No Boom, he was never the director at STM. He taught at Vinton, Rayne, and Acadiana before retiring and coming on at UL in 2007.
Thanks! I'll tell him you said that.
Ragsdale was the Acadiana band director right before Clarence Hebert. Clarence is who brought in Wag to write drill and then recommended him to replace him. Ragsdale left Acadiana High to become the band director at the University of Florida. That experiment didn't go real well. You can run high school kids (in the old days) like a military. College kids reject bossy band directors. The really good college bands are getting really good musicians. When you aren't a good college band yet, you had better cater to great horn and drummers (and there are prescriptions to do that) and not get the least bit irritated that they dominate everyone and everything about the band. If you want to suck as a college band, you hug on all of the conforming little musician whimps. even though they can't bring it.
You can still run a h/s band like the military providing you do it in a very positive manner. Look no further than Lafayette High, they can bring it with the best as far a military h/s bands. That's one of the great things about h/s band in the area.pretty much all of the band directors in the area network, attend showcase at UL, do winter camp at UL. A very nurturing group.
I only mentioned the old days because those were my band days. I'm sure you are right. The biggest difference in most Lafayette area high school bands is the quality and quantity of good feeder schools. I'm sure that is true in most places. Someone has to keep the junior high kids willing to keep it going. When I was at Acadiana, we dominated the state because we were getting the best feeder schools from Lafayette. Rezoning and the natural growth in other areas of Lafayette contributed to the shift in who was dominant next. It's funny to hear some of my old Acadiana friends tell me that now that their kids are at Lafayette High, that band is so much better. I know that they are. But it has to do with good parenting and where those parents live. Even when I was in high school, the HS band directors socialized together. Even though some privately disliked each other, they did work together to strengthen Lafayette high school bands.
There are currently 3 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 3 guests)