WOODLAND — Seventy-six trombones? Woodland High School’s pep band has one.
And trombonist Jim Blair hasn’t been a student musician for more than 25 years.
Band director Bryana Steck wants to fill the Beavers’ new football stadium with music, and she is recruiting more musicians who can keep the place rocking.
Her long-term goal is to increase the number of younger students participating in music. In the meantime, Steck has found other musicians who sit in for Beaver football, volleyball and basketball games.
They include Woodland students who aren’t enrolled in band because of busy class schedules but enjoy playing music.
At Thursday’s volleyball game against Columbia River, the band was supplemented by a seventh-grade tenor sax player who contributed to pep-band standards as “Iron Man” and “Danger Zone.”
And then there is that trombone player. Blair is a community member who has strong ties to the school. Blair was a Woodland High musician who graduated in 1988. Last year, daughter Jessica Blair was a senior in the band.
It goes back even further. Blair’s father played tuba in the school band in the 1950s, making Jessica a third-generation Woodland High musician.
Steck is a second-generation program participant herself.
“I went to high school here and my dad, Paul Cline, was the band director for almost 30 years,” said Steck. As a baritone sax player in the Woodland band, she earned an “outstanding musician” award at the 2001 Mount Hood Jazz Festival as well as in other competitions.
“Mr. Cline was my band instructor through high school,” Blair added.
The origins of Blair’s current band gig go back a couple of years, when Jessica was a junior.
“I’d been going to games and noticing there were no trombones,” Blair said. After Jessica urged him to join the band, “I got to thinking about it over the summer. I got my trombone out and could still play it.”
Jessica, who played flute and saxophone, is a freshman at Oregon State now. But for one year, Jim and Jessica Blair had the remarkable opportunity to be high school bandmates.
“To sit in the band with my daughter was pretty amazing,” Blair said.
Blair doesn’t only show up for home games, by the way. He went along last year when the Woodland boys made the state Class 2A basketball playoffs in Yakima.
He even helped out as a chaperone during the trip, said Steck.
Steck has invited a couple of her musician friends in the area to play in the band, and some school staff members sound interested.
In addition to bulking up the sound, the community volunteers also show students how music can be a life-long pursuit. That’s important too, Steck said.
“There are six or seven students I can think of who have participated in college or have done community bands,” Steck said. “To me, that’s a success for the program.”
