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Cymbals crashed, clarinets ran up and down scales, and the room was filled with the sounds of trumpets, tubas and trombones. In front of the instruments and surrounded by the cacophony was Gary Urness, waving a baton and directing the sound into system.
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Gary Urness directs the eighth grade band recently during a rehearsal for their year-end concert at Winona Middle School. Urness, a music teacher in the district for the last 21 years, will retire next month.
(Photo by Melissa Carlo/Winona Daily News) |
With a triumphant climax, the music abruptly stopped.
“Wow, that’s going to be good,” Urness called out.
The instructor rounded up the eighth-grade concert band, giving them final instructions before they left for their next classes. They sounded great, he told them, but they would need to keep tightening their arrangements if they wanted to impress the crowd during their year-end performance.
“If we have another rehearsal like this, we are going to be stellar,” he said.
Urness has been through this scene many times. The final instructions and tune-ups before the concert season finale are all part of the routine to ensure that the year’s work and practices would culminate in success.
This year, however, there was something different.
This concert would be his last as a band instructor for the district.
Gary Urness is retiring.
B<>Inspiring kids through music
Every year, school districts are faced with filling the void left by longtime teachers who decide to hand in their rulers and chalk. This year is typical, with at least eight instructors having submitted formal resignations.
While the teachers will be replaced, their experience won’t. Decades of knowledge and familiarity within a school system just can’t be imitated or fabricated. The years must be put in.
The music department in Winona will be particularly hard-hit this time. Urness, the eighth-grade band teacher and high school jazz instructor with 21 years in the district, will be joined in retirement by Nancy Boyum-Brown, an elementary and middle school band teacher with 34 years under her belt.
Boyum-Brown, a farm girl from Peterson, doesn’t know what it’s like to teach anywhere but Winona. She student taught in the district while she was at Winona State University, and took a part-time job at St. Stanislaus Middle School for a semester. A teacher in the Winona school district retired that spring, and Boyum-Brown was hired to fill the position.
“She’s done an incredible job,” Urness said of his colleague. “She’s supported music in Winona so much.”
Students who have had the two as teachers say Urness and Boyum-Brown have not only supported them in their musical studies but also inspired them.
“I’ve really gotten into jazz because of him,” eighth-grader Adam Merchlewitz said of Urness. “I really wish he’d stay so I could learn from him at the high school.”
As students cleaned up the stage after their rehearsal, they spoke about Urness: He made learning music fun, was always ready to crack a joke while teaching. Most importantly, they said, he found a way to get his students to listen — and understand — the music.
“Some people only teach you the music, but he teaches you what the music is about,” said eighth-grader Erin Berlin-Burns.
“When you think of middle school band, you think of Gary Urness,” Merchlewitz said.
Urness’ students said they knew this would be his last performance at the school, but instead of feeling extra pressure to make the moment special, they said they felt honored — especially because Urness put Edward German’s “A Welsh Rhapsody” on the program.
A favorite of Urness’, he said he has been waiting more than 20 years to have the right group of students to play the song. While he has always had talented kids, he never had the perfect mix.
Until this show, his last hurrah.
Exploring new opportunities
With retirement comes springs and falls that were once filled by early mornings in the classroom but now must be filled otherwise. Each of the soon-to-be retirees has their own plan for their newfound free time.
Urness said he will spend more time with his wife and visit their children more often. He’ll also continue to play jazz in the area and will get time to work on another love of his.
“I’ve got a 1967 Chevelle and a ’54 Ford truck that I plan on restoring myself,” Urness said. “Well, 90 percent of it.”
Boyum-Brown will join her husband, Dean Brown, who retired from the district after more than 23 years of teaching. Though she will spend more time with family and possibly do some traveling, she said she is interested in continuing to teach, though in a different way than she is used to.
“I want to substitute teach in the classroom,” Boyum-Brown said. “I always wondered what it would like to be in the classroom all day long, instead of being so structured in one subject.”
Others have less defined plans. Sheldon Taylor, a WMS special education teacher of 34 years, said he has no defined idea about how he will spend retirement. He said he knows he’ll miss the kids, but other than that, it’s up in the air.
“I’m not one to come up with long-term plans,” said Taylor. “I’ll find something to do.”
Some retiring teachers won’t be leaving for reprieve from the work week, only a change of scenery.
Barbara Sundermeyer, a fifth-grade teacher at WMS, will return to Gillette, Wyo., to teach, the district she came to Winona from. She’ll join her husband, who took a job there. She will be retiring from Minnesota, not from teaching.
“I’ll miss the wonderful colleagues I’ve worked with,” Sundermeyer said. “That’s the hard part, to leave people you have been close to.”
That sentiment was echoed by Urness, Boyum-Brown, and the other retiring teachers. They said they’ll miss the bond they create with their fellow teachers. Most of all, though, they’ll miss the reason they got into teaching: the kids.
“I’m going to miss that first day of school when I start testing students’ voices for matching pitch,” said Boyum-Brown. “It was always a thrill because a few students had discovered their voices in the summer.”
