Nafc - Tv's - Moving forward January 10, 2014

welcome to moving forward and welcome back from winter break finally I'm diane williamson this week our teacher feature is about Doug elmore who's been the orchestra director at Floyd Central for 27 years during his tenure his orchestra has performed at the Indiana State Finals for 24 consecutive years which is a record, winning the state championship in 1995 and runner-up in 96 and 98 the orchestra have also performed at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York twice over the winter break it was announced that dog was selected at the 2014 high school orchestra teacher of the year by the Indiana chapter of the American string Teachers Association we had a chance to talk with Doug earlier this week about his career at New Albany Floyd County Schools. without putting too fine a point on it I started out doing exactly what I'm doing now I was hired in the fall of 1986 as the orchestra director what was then Floyd Central Junior slash senior high school and so I taught all the students grades seven through 12 in that building because back then it was the same building and I traveled out to Galena elementary school and Georgetown elementary school the time passed and the program evolved they opened a new middle school and so at that point I became purely high school and middle school because opened it up to sixth graders and then to fifth graders so at this point in time the job involves teaching six different orchestras grades five through 12. I asked how he inspires his students. A piano player in Louisville, Harold Pickens, he's a fantastic jazz piano player and he said if you teach from your passion you're always gonna pull people in because they'll be drawn to the passion and not just what you're talking about and I basically start each beginner session with this is the coolest thing in the world how can anybody not like this and a lot up kids are attracted to it and seem to enjoy playing it and they stay attracted to it through their school careers. the first principal no that's not true the first assistant principal that was a sort of my superior was a guy named John Marsh who people who've been around the school corporation will remember that name He said two things to me that were really powerful one of them was remember you're not teaching music you're teaching kids and then he was talking about music at some point when he was giving a presentation he said music i think is one of the things that makes us more fully human and by digging deep in the music in deep into the arts that that increases our humanity so how does Doug plan to keep raising the bar for his students I ask myself that question from time to time. I think what we can do at this point in time as we can continue to refined the vision for what does it mean to be a really outstanding high school string program and an outstanding high school orchestra program I think we can make inroads into alternative styles of music jazz bluegrass fiddling Celtic music. I think we can do more with community outreach with getting our kids out playing for part to the community that... the sentence I never want to hear again in my life and I know I'll hear it but I'm still gonna work to eradicate it is Do they have an orchestra at Floyd Central? I didn't know that! I would love to never hear that again so that's that's one of my personal goals is to get it to where it's a common and well-known fact that there's a really good string program here there are really good career programs that Prosser career center and if you want to know more about them you should attend their Open House next Thursday January 16 from 5:30 to 7:30 you can learn about Prosser's 25 career opportunities ranging from criminal justice aircraft operations pharmacy architectural drafting to health care for more information call 542 8508 we are always looking for good stories to tell so if you have one please share with us and you can stay up to date by checking out our website liking us on Facebook and following us on Twitter I'm Diane Williamson. We'll see you next week on moving forward