Holding the saxophone he carefully positions his finger on the keys. As he plays it’s as if the saxophone shines and his confidence grows with each note.

By his senior year of high school, Michael Childs knew he wanted to be a band
director. The idea of being able to teach students the way his band director taught him
inspired him to become a band Director.

“Growing up, I was always interested in music,” Mr. Childs said, “In junior high and
high school my band directors were always my biggest influencers.”

Mr Childs joined band in the 6th grade. When he was 12-years-old, he picked up his
very first instrument-the saxophone.

“When I was in 6th grade, my first instrument was the saxophone, “Mr Childs said. “I
did other things as well as matching band, jazzband, and concert band.”

Mr. Childs accomplished many things during his high school years thanks to his
teachers who pushed him to excel.

“My biggest inspirations were my high school band directors, particularly my head
band director Mr. Cook.” Mr Childs said.

Mr. Alexander, was another significant influence on him. Alexander not only hired Mr.
Childs for his first job, but also played a key role in the way he teaches and motivates
his students.

“My predecessor, my band Director who hired me, Mr. Alexander was a big influence
on how I taught.” Mr. Childs says “He hired me as his assistant, and became a huge
role model for me.”

Getting into band was not going to be easy to accomplish. It is going to take all the
band members good effort to get into the area finals.

“All the band members put in the time for the show, both musically and visually” said
Mr Childs. “We all worked together as a team, all the students worked equally as hard to
make the band better.”

For Mr. Childs, his goal was to help kids do something that they love, and it
was always worth it.

“ It’s a passion helping kids learn how to love music, and even on their bad days, you
know there’s going to be better days. Watching their eyes light up after learning how to do
something new is always worth it to see their expression,” Mr. Childs said.

Although this was Mr. Childs 27th year of being a band Director, he had a feeling that
this was his and his students’ year.

“I was excited this year, and I felt that the kids put in the effort,” Mr Childs said. “I felt as if this year we had a really good shot at advancing to finals.”

Mr. Childs noticed at the second contest of the season that the students placed really well showing that they had a lot of improvement.

“ That’s when I started thinking this could be the year something great will happen,”
Mr. Childs said. “This year they all worked hard. We all got the drills and the music down
faster than we normally do.”

When the students heard that they made it into finals, they were ecstatic.

“There was a lot of nervousness and jittery energy before they announced that we had
made it to the finals. Once they did, everyone jumped to their feet, going wild with
excitement.”

Mr. Childs is proud of his band students. not only did they achieve their goal, but they
also had fun while doing something that they love.

“I was so proud of them. It had been a goal for a while to get them to be on that level
of competition.” Mr Childs said. “ I couldn’t have been more proud of my students. We
were confident that this would be a good year and it was!”

(This is part 1 of an in-depth news/feature. Read part 2 next called “Band advances to area finals after eight years of competing”)