BY CLIFF SMELLEY
Telegraph Staff Writer
Steve Couch did most of the work that would lead to a degree in mechanical engineering, but in the end, he decided to go in a different direction.
He wanted to do something he really enjoyed, which ultimately led to him going to Bradford Middle School, where he serves as band director.
Couch talked of an internship he did at Jacobs Engineering, where his grandfather worked and retired after a 40-year career. He worked as a data-entry person.
A desk job where he couldn’t see the sun except when he was traveling to and from work didn’t appeal to him. Neither did having to go through five levels of security to enter and exit the Jacobs building.
“I wasn’t a fan of that,” Couch said. “I was like, ‘I’d rather do something fun.’”
He had one more semester’s worth of work to earn his engineering degree. At 21 years of age, he joined the University of Florida drum corps for what was his age-out summer — the last year he’d be eligible to participate. After four months of that, he admitted to getting depressed.
“I missed music. I wasn’t playing,” he said. “I was just doing math.”
Couch said he took a year off from school and worked on his skills in bass, an instrument he began playing at the age of 7.
“I auditioned for the School of Music and started doing Music Ed from there,” he said.
He joined the BMS band program as an assistant during the latter part of the 2021-22 year and became director this year. It’s his first formal teaching job, but he has prior experience at P.K. Yonge and Titusville High School.
Couch grew up in Melbourne along Florida’s Space Coast.
“I got to see the Space Shuttle program go. That was fun,” Couch said.
He credits his interest in music to his family. His mother played tuba. His grandmother played baritone.
“We had a piano growing up, so they would just show me things,” Couch said.
When he was set to begin middle school, Couch said his mother suggested he join band and try his hand at playing the tuba.
Being in band created many lifelong memories that he can still remember “clear as day.” Those memories and the ones his students are creating now don’t have so much to do with music. Instead, they’re about the experiences and the personal interactions.
It makes Couch think of something a mentor told him.
“The thing is, these kids aren’t going to remember their performances,” he said. “They’re never going to remember the music they played, but they’re going to remember the bus rides home with their friends.”
Goals for BMS band
Couch said one of his goals is to work with BMS students on the fundamentals of music and to get them to understand the benefit of having a strong work ethic.
Another goal is to prepare students for band at Bradford High School and hopefully grow that program.
“What we’re trying to do here is at least get the kids situated enough to where they’re ready to go into marching band,” Couch said. “Not to go to a full competitive level, but to make Bradford where it used to be, I guess, about 20 years ago, which is just to have as many kids as possible and to make it as big and as good as possible.”
Couch, who currently teaches six classes of approximately 120 students, said he has been working with administration on opportunities to increase the program’s visibility on campus.
“The administration and I are working out a few plans to start a middle school pep band for big games next year,” Couch said.
Perhaps more students will want to be involved in band as a consequence.
“The eventual plan is to get the band program big enough that we have to hire a second band director for here specifically,” Couch said.
One of the issues facing the program is space — specifically a lack of it. Couch said students don’t have any place where they feel they can store their instruments safely. Brandyn Barksdale, one of the program’s boosters, said her daughter once had her instrument go missing until it was located three days later in the corner of a back room.
Couch said he and others tore down the band room’s old library and made a shelf for trombones to sit on at least, but the ideal situation would be to have lockers for instruments.
Those cost quite a bit. Couch said trombone lockers cost more than $6,000. The program, he said, could use two or three of those.
For now, though, he’s been working to clean up and remove as much clutter as possible to free up more space that can be utilized.
“If the kids come into a place, and it’s clean, and it’s tidy, and it looks professional, they’re going to treat it (professionally) and act (professionally),” Couch said.
Couch said the program benefitted by receiving three filing cabinets that came from one of the recently closed elementary schools in the county. Those provide a much better way of storing the program’s music, some of which, Couch said, has been out of print for 60 years and can fetch up to $3,000 on ebay.
Those pieces of music had been stored in cardboard boxes.
“We’ve been shifting everything toward cataloguing it in a filing-cabinet system.”
The fact the program has a lot of music that’s out of print addresses another issue.
“We need new music,” Couch said, adding, “Our music library hasn’t been updated for a very long time. A new piece of music is anywhere from $50 to $80.”
If you’d like to know more about the band program or how to support it, please call Bradford Middle School at 904-966-6701 or send email to [email protected] or [email protected].
Making a difference
The BMS band program has needs, but the school does have one of the nicest band rooms in North Florida, Couch said.
It also benefits from a strong support system in its band boosters. Couch remembers the latter part of the 2021-22 year when he was informed about the program’s end-of-year banquet, which he knew nothing about. The boosters told him they’d take care of everything.
“Our boosters help out so much,” Couch said.
The boosters’ involvement can in turn influence other parents to be boosters in the future.
“I’m fortunate in that what they’re doing is leading by example,” Couch said. “Whenever we start getting more parents involved, they’ll want to help out as much as possible, too.”
Barksdale said it means a lot to children when their parents are involved in their activities. She said a lack of involvement by her parents is one reason why she quit band when she was in school.
“I get it. I had a bunch of younger siblings,” Barksdale said, adding, “I swore that when I had kids, whatever they wanted to do, I was going to be there and let them know, ‘If this is important to you, this is important to me.’”
Speaking of important, that’s just what band or any arts program is for youth. Barksdale and fellow booster/parent Nicole Canipe have witnessed that in their own children. Canipe has a son with autism in the eighth grade. After one semester of band, he said, “You know, I never thought I would fit in anywhere.”
“It gives him a sense of accomplishment and some place that he can go and be himself, and nobody judges him,” Canipe said.
Barksdale has a son with autism, too, who began taking band in high school.
“By the time he finished that first year of just one band class a day, just to see the advancement and development in his brain was phenomenal,” Barksdale said.
Music is a great outlet for her children, Barksdale said. She’s seen her daughter feel like her “brain’s going to explode” from working on school assignments and ask if she can take a break to practice her instrument. Barksdale said 10-15 minutes of that, and her daughter has her focus back and is ready to return to her assignments.
“It really helps in so many parts of your life,” Barksdale said.
Couch said music and other such classes offer youth a vital creative freedom.
“If we’re not allowing kids to be creative or express themselves in a way that they understand, that helps them to come to terms with anything, then we’re kind of doing them a disservice,” he said.
