Our worlds at DPHS overlapped..
I remember the first time I met Ken Fisher. It was 1975, and I was the Bicentennial person for the city of Spokane. This band director type with a big grin and lots of enthusiasm came to the local county celebration commission with a wild idea to take Deer Park’s band to the Bicentennial parade in Philadelphia. He was first, with that great plan, and we said “sure, go for it” And boy, that whole town dreamed his dream and wow, did you all do it!
Jump two years, and I went to work as the DPHS librarian. Our worlds overlapped, because I was hanging out in the library, and his world was the bandroom. But oh, the effect I saw on that school!. I remember the wonderful send-off assemblies when the band and drill team went off to competition. I remember the empty halls when the group was away. We had 600 kids in that new high school and 200 or so (it seemed) were gone! I remember all the various and sundry kids of all ages, stages and economic states who were able to participate in the program. I remember the excitement and creativity he inspired. And his program gave me one of my most treasured opportunities there. One thing you folks never had to watch was the hard job of scheduling all of you in all your classes. One day Mr. Getchell came to me after working as much magic as he could, and asked me to teach a small sophomore English class to a few orphans who needed to be in band the same hour as their class. Would I? I had a blast, and a few of us sat in the library conference and read books and talked. Craig Peterson was one of those students, I remember. So though I never took music from Ken, I got to make some of my own. My thoughts go to you, Nancy, Rob and family. You are such a part of the little town that made (and still makes) beautiful music!