If you go
› What: Jim Souders 70th Birthday Barbecue Fundraiser› When: 4:30-10 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 25› Where: The Colonnade, 264 Catoosa Circle, Ringgold, Ga.› Tickets: $30 in advance at either Farm to Fork Restaurant, 118 Remco Shops Lane, Ringgold, or online at www. jimsoudersbirthday.com. While supplies last, tickets sold at the door are $35.› Information: www.jimsoudersbirthday.com
County bands benefit
Although Saturday’s barbecue bash will honor Jim Souders, it will impact students in all Catoosa County middle or high school bands in two ways.First, band students at LFO, Ringgold and Catoosa high schools are selling tickets to Saturday’s party. The band selling the most wins $1,000. The winning band may use the donation to help purchase needed instruments or to start a scholarship fund.“We’re looking at either buying a bass trombone, an E-flat clarinet or flugelhorn,” says Tracy Wright at Ringgold High School. “Those are specialty instruments starting between $1,500 to $3,000. For high school literature, you need a bass trombone. We have parts in our jazz band that call for that clarinet.”Rich Stichler says LFO’s band is in the market for new French horns or baritones, “and they are at least $3,000 to $5,000 apiece.”Second, with proceeds from the benefit the planning committee will start a Jim Souders Band Instrument Fund, an ongoing endowment to buy large band instruments for middle and high school bands in Catoosa County.
The year was 1974 and Tammy Grimes was a student who wanted to play in the band at Lakeview Middle School in Georgia. But the $10 a month rental for a clarinet was too much of a strain for her mother's budget, which had to stretch to raise a family of five.
Band director Jim Souders solved the dilemma.
"Jim had such a keen sense of what was going on with people. He picked up that it was a stretch for us. He made it look like I had a thin lip and said I would be an awesome French horn player. The school had a French horn, so I wouldn't have to rent an instrument," she recalls, laughing at how that tactful assessment kept her in the band.
More than 40 years later, she still plays in her church orchestra, although trumpet is her horn now.
"Being in band made me come out of my shell. It helped my self-esteem. If it hadn't been for band I wouldn't be the person I am today," she credits.
After she told that story to a group of Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe High School band alumni - all influenced by their years under Souders' baton - the idea was born for a fundraiser that would help purchase instruments for current band students at not only their alma mater, but Ringgold and Heritage high schools as well.
Wade Cardwell and Ed Sloan already had been brainstorming ideas to honor Souders. They wanted an event that would bring together all the band students he'd taught over 30 years at LFO.
"We didn't want to wait until he was in poor health to start giving him props," says Cardwell.
Then the two saw on Facebook where their director's 70th birthday was approaching, combined that with Grimes' idea for a fundraiser and began spreading the word through social media.
The Jim Souders 70th Birthday Party and Barbecue Fundraiser is set for Saturday night at The Colonnade. Doors open at 4:30 p.m. for a social hour before a dinner catered by Farm to Fork. A program with Souders and his wife, Jensi, will follow with entertainment by the Kevin Roberts Jazz Quartet.
Cardwell says an LFO alumni rock band will open and close the party; but there's an after-party jam session planned for any alum who wants to bring an instrument and sit in.
"Jim and his wife made it cool to be in the band," says Cardwell. "And nobody won more than we did at LFO."
The event is open to anyone who has known Jim Souders, from the time he was a student at Brainerd High School through his 30 years at LFO to his latest position as volunteer director of the Midsouth Community Band.
The Souders met in the mid-1960s when she was drum major and he a musician in The Band of Blue at Middle Tennessee State University. After graduation and marriage, he landed the job of band director at what was then Lakeview High School in 1969.
The couple were a force to be reckoned with on the field: He taught the band; she taught drum majors (at LFO and high schools around Chattanooga) and also started the LFO drill team.
She taught English at LFO for 10 years, then was the school's library media specialist another 10 before transferring to the Catoosa school system's central office She retired in 1999 as instructional specialist with Catoosa County schools.
Between the two, they literally touched hundreds of students' lives over three decades.
Starting small
Souders started with about 70 band students at Lakeview, but those numbers dropped by 20 or so when he instigated rules to lay the foundation for his band program.
"Numbers went down because he put in a set of requirements that students had to play in order to make the high school band. For the first few years, students weren't used to that kind of requirements," says his wife.
Band members were expected to know and play scales. You couldn't sit in the back and fake it; each musician had to play all marching and concert band music for the band director.
He developed a handbook with rules, what was expected of each player, and what would happen if those regulations weren't followed.
"Several majorettes decided they were going to cut band one year. It was a pretty day and they wanted to go get ice cream. It kind of hurt my feelings they wanted to skip because you were supposed to like band," he says in mock dismay.
"I caught them, told them I could suspend them but didn't want to. Instead, they cleaned the two bandroom restrooms with toothbrushes for two weeks. Those restrooms sparkled!" he laughs.
Cardwell was another who got toothbrush duty.
"My senior year, the percussionists played a prank at the last ballgame. Because of that prank, we cleaned both bathrooms with toothbrushes," he says.
Souder sayings
The band director had favorite expressions he used so often that his students compiled a list of more than two dozen "Souderisms." Copies of the list will be available at Saturday's benefit.
"'Not my problem' was No. 1," says Grimes.
Others were:
* "I'm not your maid. I'm not your mother or your father, and I'm not gonna pick up after you."
* "Put the hairbrush up. This is not a beauty parlor."
* "You drummers are sounding like a popcorn machine back there."
* "If you're gonna make a mistake, make it loud."
By the late 1970s, numbers had built and LFO's band numbered 80 to 90 most years. The band competed in three or four contests each fall, and it was unusual when the band, drum major and auxiliary units received anything less than a "superior" rating.
From the mid-1980s until Souder retired, LFO claimed the highest annual percentage of students selected for the district honors band as well as all-state band. Atlanta schools might have had a higher number of musicians attending, but percentages were based on the number chosen from each school vs. the number, or size, of the band. LFO excelled at placing its musicians in the honor bands.
Rich Stichler says that, when he took over the LFO band in 1999, "it was probably the best group of musicians I ever had in my career. I always looked at LFO as a classy school with a classy band with kids who could play. It was a dream job for me."
Ringgold High band director Tracy Wright, who has taught in Catoosa County for almost 25 years, says "Jim is the patriarch of North Georgia band directors. He's the dean of Catoosa County band directors."
"We have three very strong band programs in Catoosa County and Jim Souders is the one that got that started when he was at LFO," Wright says. "He has been a great mentor to all of us in the county. He's always been that person who gave terrific advice on rehearsing a band, but also on managing a band program."
Contact Susan Pierce at spierce@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6284.