In early October, the Middle School Band received an unexpected surprise when they learned that their beloved clarinet expert and band director, Paige Barber, was retiring.
Barber contributed heavily to the success of the Middle School Band Program, working as a band director and clarinet specialist since 2008. In her time here, she helped her fellow band directors Zac Ferguson-Cogdill, McKinley Stinson, and recently-retired Tim Howard to create the band program we know and love today.
Ferguson-Cogdill says he was just as surprised as the students. “I learned about Mrs. Barber’s retirement around the same time that [the students] did, maybe a couple of days before,” he says. “[I was] really shocked, and sad and happy at the same time.”
Barber is one of the most influential people in the history of the band program. For sixteen years, she assisted both students and teachers in the band. Every Monday, the students of the band meet with specialists for their instruments, and Barber stepped in as the sectionalist for the clarinet players. Her one-on-one time with the young clarinetists helped the students get better and brought her and the students together.
When Barber retired in early October, Joseph Allan stepped in to take her place less than two weeks later. Allan said he’d only heard about Barber’s retirement and applied for the position “a week after” Barber announced her retirement. “I really like the Westminster community as a whole. I’m not much of a band person as much as I am a musician,” he says. He wanted to “develop musicianship skills in students.” He felt honored to take the place of someone who had taught him. “I was one of her first students,” he says. “I had Mrs. Barber in fifth grade and then all of middle school.” Allan has been integrated into the community via the “stickers” he gives out. Ferguson-Cogdill originally started this nice incentive, but Allan has truly made it his own. His positive reinforcement has gained popularity amongst the students, making his transition smooth. He has brought many benefits to the band program, from helping with small tasks to transporting large instruments such as the tubas or the contrabass clarinet.
Even as the band is coping with the retirement of their beloved band director, some questions for the future have come up. Because Barber had been the clarinet sectionalist, the clarinets now lack the level of expertise she had to offer. For the remainder of the semester, Ferguson-Cogdill has put soprano clarinets with trumpets and flutes and the low clarinets with the low brass or other low woodwinds such as the bassoons; he has attempted to help the soprano clarinets by playing the clarinet along with the trumpet during the Monday sectionals, but there has been a little chaos without a proper professional. Ferguson-Cogdill has made it known that the band should have a new clarinet specialist by 2025, but this pronouncement left everyone to wonder: what lies ahead?
Barber recently visited during the Band’s Christmas concert, which was a warm surprise for the students and the teachers. Even though she no longer teaches at Westminster, the students will not soon forget her legacy.