http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/p...0924/NEWS01/409240365&SearchID=73184923066521
'Fiasco' silences Pride of Provine
Without director, marching band disbands
By Billy Watkins
bwatkins@clarionledger.com
Greg Jenson/The Clarion-Ledger
Their T-shirts read: Pain is temporary, pride is forever. A little reminder that preseason practice in the hot August sun will pay off on Friday nights in the fall.
And, usually, the practicing doesn't ease up much at Jackson's Provine High School once football season begins. Last year, willing parents illuminated the practice field with their vehicle lights on numerous occasions when workouts outlasted the sun.
Oh, the football team worked hard, too, making it once again to the Class 4A playoffs.
But this is about the band — The Pride of Provine. The band that has routinely won superior ratings at state competition for more than two decades. The band that has produced about 20 current members of Jackson State University's Sonic Boom.
The band, for the time being at least, has disbanded after losing a director candidate over the summer to Jackson State and after the interim director demanded changes in the band's style and song choices.
James McCloud left Provine after one year as band director, but Provine Principal Tex Red felt confident he had filled the position when he went on vacation in June.
"When I returned, I noticed there was no activity, no band rehearsals going on. They were supposed to begin July 12," Red says.
But the person he thought he had hired, Renardo Murray, never signed a contract with Jackson Public Schools and accepted the position as assistant band director at Jackson State instead. Murray did not return phone calls.
:mrt:
"That left me in a position to find a band director two or three weeks before school started," Red says. "I couldn't find one."
The school year began Aug. 9.
So he assigned the extra duty — which usually brings with it additional pay of $1,000 or more per year — to music teacher Chan Leggette, a newcomer from Rowan Middle School.
Leggette would not agree to be interviewed for this story and referred all questions to Red.
The problems began when Leggette told students and boosters he planned to make major changes in Provine's show and music selection, which for years had followed the funk-is-good style of JSU.
By the fourth week of school, all but a handful of the 70 members had quit. Band rehearsals were soon suspended. Leggette went back to solely teaching classes. And Provine began an immediate search for a new band director.
Red calls Leggette's situation "a personnel matter that I can't talk about."
Says Younger: "(Leggette) wants us to play songs from the '70s and '80s, which is fine.
"I understand he's the band leader, and we're not trying to tell him all the songs we're going to play. But there's a tradition here. We don't want to give that up completely."
One point of contention was what the band would say when called to attention. In the past, the band yelled in unison "pride!" Leggette had changed it to "yes!"
"That may seem like a small thing," Debra Sims says, "but it's a tradition these kids have grown up hearing and doing. It's a big deal to them."
But
JSU band Director Lewis Liddell, who headed the program at Provine from 1976 through 1984, says the students and parents have a legitimate gripe.
"You just can't go into a place and change the whole program overnight," Liddell says. "What you do is learn what has made the program great in the past and build on it. Make changes, but make them gradually. You can kill a program if you go in there and say, 'We're going to do things my way.'
:shame: ....RIght !!!!!! If that is not the Pot calling the KETTLE black !!!!!
"I'll tell you this: Provine was the most disciplined band I've ever had at any level. They were focused, dedicated. They did their schoolwork. And when they came to practice, they treated it almost like a military operation. It really meant something to them."
Many received college scholarships — another issue current band members are having to face.
"Everybody in our band has the potential to get a scholarship," Keith Sims says. "But if we're not playing and getting that exposure, it's not going to happen."
I wonder if Provine's band director, Chan Leggette, the guy Taylor-Made'90 is talking about?
