Tuesday night time, the Tullahoma Metropolis Faculties Board of Training honored two neighborhood favourite educators who devoted a good portion of their lives and careers to instructing music to Tullahoma’s college students. Marion and Stephen Coleman, who served as the administrators of the Tullahoma Band program for many years, have been honored as the most recent recipients of the Clyde W. Smith Jr. Management Award, making them the 21st and 22nd award honorees.
The board held a particular reception for the Colemans previous to the regularly-scheduled board assembly Tuesday night time, welcoming the neighborhood, pals, college students and former colleagues to share hugs and reminisce concerning the Colemans’ time on the helm of the Tullahoma Band program. Loads of well-wishers got here to share within the celebration earlier than the official recognition occurred throughout the assembly.
At the moment, three of the present and former band administrators who taught underneath the Colemans shared their historical past and legacy within the Tullahoma musical neighborhood.
Atticus Hensley, who leads the center college band applications, started with how the distinctive partnership between Stephen and Marion created the shared legacy of the couple. When one individual’s title was evoked, the opposite’s was, too, he mentioned.
“The 2 are seen as one,” he mentioned of the pair.
Hensley then outlined the beginnings of the Colemans’ instructing profession at Wartburg Central Excessive at each the instrumental and vocal departments, sharing the quite a few accomplishments the pair collected throughout their time there and their subsequent steps at Waverly Central Excessive Faculty within the late Seventies and ‘80s.
He additionally shared how the Colemans “mainly salvaged my life from an enormous wreckage pile” by seeing his potential, for which he sincerely thanked them.
Dr. Greg English, who beforehand served as a band director and now runs the Tullahoma Digital Academy, continued the Colemans’ story, sharing their philosophy of “It’s All Concerning the Youngsters.” This philosophy is one they instilled in all of their colleagues and one that’s nonetheless taught within the Tullahoma Band program at any stage. English outlined the beginnings of the Colemans’ tenure in Tullahoma, which started in 1988.
“For the following 20 years, they constructed the Tullahoma Band program to such a excessive diploma of musicianship that the title ‘Tullahoma Bands’ and ‘high quality’ grew to become synonymous,” he mentioned.
Through the Colemans’ tenure on the helm of the band program, the band carried out in quite a few high-profile settings, together with two journeys to the Fiesta Bowl parade, the Rose Bowl and the Chicago St. Patrick’s Day Parade, performances in Hawaii on the Pearl Harbor Memorial on the invitation of the U.S. Division of the Inside, a efficiency in Cancun on the invitation of the Mexican embassy and a number of performances on the Tennessee State Music Convention. The band additionally had the chance to premier commissioned items, together with items by Greg Danner.
English additionally shared how, when he started scholar instructing with the Colemans within the late ‘90s, “nobody advised them I used to be coming,” and he was grateful the couple didn’t “ship him packing” and as an alternative took him underneath their wings.
“I owe them an excellent debt, and nobody deserves this greater than they do,” he mentioned.
Present THS Band Director Justin Scott concluded the story, sharing what the couple did upon their retirement from instructing in Tullahoma in 2011. Stephen served because the director of bands at Cumberland College, whereas Marion stayed on in a half-time capability with the center college band program for an additional three years earlier than totally retiring within the spring of 2013.
Since then, each Colemans have served because the president of the Center Tennessee Faculty Band and Orchestra Affiliation and Phi Beta Mu; Stephen has served because the president of the Tennessee Music Educators Affiliation and the Tennessee Bandmasters Affiliation; Marion has served because the chair of the Tullahoma Arts Council and supervisor of scholar lecturers for Belmont College. Moreover, the 2 have been named to the TMEA Corridor of Fame in 2009, named the Lecturers of the Yr by TCS and have been inducted into the Tennessee Bandmasters Corridor of Fame in 2015.
However a very powerful factor individuals bear in mind concerning the pair and carry with them, Scott mentioned, is the satisfaction and data of their very own skill and maturity.
“College students leaver the Tullahoma Band program realizing and believing that a very powerful facet of their music expertise with instrumental music training is that they’re matured as younger adults with music as a catalyst for his or her progress,” Scott mentioned. “Stephen and Marion by no means misplaced religion in them as younger musicians or as younger adults.”
Scott additionally shared how so many individuals, colleagues and college students alike, would share tales of “mother and pa Coleman” or “mother and pop Coleman,” saying he, too, felt that familial bond with the couple as a scholar instructor and later a colleague.
“I owe all the things to them,” he mentioned, turning into emotional. “They honestly are a second mother and pop to me. I’m who I’m due to them, and I need to thanks from the underside of my coronary heart. Nobody deserves this greater than you.”
Marion thanked the board and her former colleagues for his or her type phrases and the glory itself.
“This has been such an exquisite job,” she mentioned. “I’ve met such fantastic individuals on this city. I hope you guys know the way essential all these persons are and the way a lot they care about you and your kids. I’ve by no means seen anyplace—we’ve traveled quite a bit; we all know a whole lot of people; we meet a whole lot of band administrators in every single place—and it is a particular place. It’s all the time been a particular place.”
She added that when she and Stephen took the job in Tullahoma, the Waverly college directors begged them to come back again, which is how she knew Tullahoma was the place to be.
“We mentioned, ‘No, that is the place we should be now,’” she mentioned. “I’ve by no means regretted it; he’s by no means regretted it, which is why we nonetheless dwell in the neighborhood.”
She additional mentioned the individuals who run the Tullahoma Band program—Hensley, Scott, English, Doug Clark and others—are “cream of the crop.”
“It’s not going to get any higher,” she mentioned.
She thanked the board for the help it confirmed her and her husband for 22 years, in addition to for supporting the present administrators as they proceed the custom of excellence in Tullahoma.
Stephen joked that he was really getting “the final phrase” from his spouse, however then mentioned he was equally humbled and honored of the award.
“To do one thing that you just really love is what life is all about; to have the ability to do one thing that you just love and be paid for it’s heaven,” he mentioned. “That’s the very best it will probably get. This has been an incredible expertise for each of us. It has been a life we have now beloved each minute of—most each minute. It’s one which now we really take pleasure in these extremely proficient people who find themselves working the music and humanities applications right here and doing such a incredible job.”
He additionally agreed with Marion on the standard of the Tullahoma college board, saying he meets with individuals from throughout and has realized that Tullahoma is “an extremely particular place” and the neighborhood ought to work to maintain it “nearly as good because it will get.”
“Thanks a lot,” he mentioned.
The Colemans nonetheless reside in Tullahoma, although Marion mentioned individuals possible wouldn’t see her out in about as a result of “small zoo” she has at dwelling, referencing the various “large canines” and different animals she cares for.