Phil Thomas retiring after 36 years as band teacher

May 18—With the spring semester coming to an end, Phil Thomas remains busy preparing the Highland Hills Middle School band for their last performance of the school year.

As Thomas conducted the eighth-grade band class on Wednesday, he offered directions to the ensemble, instructing the trumpet section to play a little louder and telling musicians to slow down the tempo.

In the meantime, the number 10 was written on the whiteboard behind his podium, counting down the instructor's last days of teaching middle school band.

Thomas, the band director at Highland Hills, is retiring after 36 years teaching in New Albany-Floyd County Schools.

"After 36 years, I still love what I do, but it just feels right to move on to the next chapter in my life," he said.

Paul Shepherd, a music teacher at Highland Hills, will take leadership of the middle school's band program next school year.

A DEDICATED TEACHER

Thomas started teaching junior high band at Floyd Central High School in 1987. He was only 23 years old, and it was his very first job after graduating from DePauw University.

He went to college with Doug Elmore, the orchestra director at Floyd Central High School, who informed him about the job opening in the first place.

At first, he was applying for jobs in Maryland where he is from, but he did not find any openings. Elmore called him and told him that the junior high band director position at Floyd Central was open, and he encouraged Thomas to interview for the job.

"And I did, and I've been here ever since," Thomas said. "It was my first interview and my first job, and 36 years later, I'm still here."

Thomas continued directing the junior high band at Floyd Central until the program transferred to Highland Hills with the opening of the middle school in 2004.

After retiring from NAFCS, he will continue working in the community as director of the Indiana University Southeast concert band and assistant bugler at Churchill Downs.

He will have more time to take on private trumpet lessons, and he will serve as a substitute teacher specifically for the band and other music classes.

Thomas is one of a group of longtime music educators in the Highland Hills/Floyd Central performing arts program, and Elmore jokes that with his departure, he is "breaking up the Beatles."

Elmore, who also teaches orchestra at Highland Hills, said in the 40 years he has known the band director, he "couldn't imagine a better colleague."

"He brings this amazing combination of patience, knowledge and superb musicianship to work every day," Elmore said. "He's a fantastic role model for his kids. His kids would knock a wall down for him — they adore him."

The two music teachers both "grew into" their jobs at the same time, and at the end of Thomas' teaching career, he is a "model of excellence in his field," Elmore said.

"I never had any doubt that he was going to be tremendously successful at the work, and he makes me work harder every day because I see the great things that he accomplishes in his classroom, and I keep thinking, OK, I need to work harder," he said.

Floyd Central Band Director Harold Yankey has also worked with Thomas for the entirety of the middle school band director's tenure, and he partners with Thomas to teach band at the middle school.

He said if those who go after Thomas continue the foundation he built, "then the educational advantages that we have at Highland Hill Middle School will continue on."

"He's got a great personality, and he trusts kids, and kids love him, but more than that, he's created something that has a future beyond when he's an actual classroom teacher," Yankey said. "That's actually harder to do."

He said Thomas has a significant influence on students at an important stage of their lives.

"That seventh-grade year when they're not just changing as musicians, but they're changing as people — he helps guide them through that time of life where things change for them, but the music and the achievement that they have when they come to the band room stay the same," he said.

Elmore said Thomas is both a dedicated educator and musician.

"When he has a spare moment in the office, you think some people would just be resting somewhere, but I hear him practicing exercises on his trumpet so that he keeps his musicianship at the highest level possible," he said.

Thomas said the band program will be in "good hands" with Shepherd and Yankey. He describes Yankey as a "dear friend and colleague" who he has worked with since the start of his career.

He said that "it's coming full circle" as Shepherd prepares to take over his position at the middle school. The incoming band director was once a student-teacher in Thomas' class.

Shepherd assists with the Highland Hills band and choir programs, and he teaches the percussion class at the middle school. He also works with the Floyd Central Symphony Orchestra.

Reflecting on his decades of teaching, Thomas said he is "most proud of how our students play," as well as the sense of discipline, belonging and ownership students experience in the band program.

"I tell the kids I didn't wave a magic wand one day and you sounded awesome," he said. "I tell the kids, it's your effort. We showed you what to do, and we push you really hard, but in the end, when you hear the eighth-grade band play, it's them playing."

It's a good feeling when he sees former students pursue careers as professional musicians or music educators, he said.

"It's an especially proud moment when a former student gets their first music teaching job, and we've had several incredibly talented students over the years who now make their living as professional performing musicians," Thomas said. "It's another sense of pride that I taught them how to put that instrument together, I taught them how to play the first notes on that instrument, and look what they're doing now."

Chris Fortner is one of Thomas' former students who entered the music profession. He was in the junior high band class at Floyd Central from 1995 to 1998.

He recalled how the teacher guided him as he started trombone lessons in elementary school, and he had already taken several years of lessons by the time he joined the sixth-grade band.

In middle school, Thomas helped him learn his first solo for the beginning band concert.

"He knew how much I wanted to pursue music at a young age and pushed me in the most friendly, positive, yet productive ways," Fortner said.

Thomas continued to support him throughout high school, whether that was by recommending a private music teacher or helping him play in the orchestra pit for local high school musicals.

Fortner ultimately pursued a music career, and he has toured with ensembles such as The World Famous Glenn Miller Orchestra and the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, along with performances with many other touring bands and artists.

He continues to work as a professional musician in the Southern Indiana and Louisville area, and he attributes Thomas as playing a large role in his career.

"His attitude, can-do spirit, energy, kindness and overall friendliness are the perfect tools to being a great teacher and leaving a lasting impact on his students whether they continue in music or not," Fortner said. "Every student of Phil's is a better person after being around him."

COUNTING DOWN TO RETIREMENT

As the end of the school year approaches, Thomas said it feels "a little surreal" as he counts down his last days as a band teacher, and he expects that the beginning of next school year will be the point where he truly absorbs the fact that he is retired.

Throughout the past school year, he has been "checking all the boxes" as he reaches certain milestones.

He will conduct the last performance with his students during the band's annual "Music in the Park" trip to Kings Island this weekend, and he has already marked milestones such as his last concert on the Highland Hills stage.

"There's been a few moments where I've felt myself get a little emotional, especially with my eighth-graders — the kids who have been with me since fifth grade," he said. "But I think what might hit me the most is the last time I walk out that door as the Highland Hills band director — like the last day as just a teacher work day."

"I will have all my stuff packed up and moved home, but the last time I walk out that door as the Highland Hills Middle School band director, it will probably be one of those, 'don't turn around and look, don't turn around and look,' and I'll turn around and look, and then the waterworks may come."

For Thomas, the most rewarding part of being a music educator is sharing the joy of creating music with his students.

"Whether they continue on with music or not, it's just that love of music and making music — not just that love of music, but a love of performing...of being in a group and creating something wonderful from all those little black dots on the page," Thomas said.