BY CLIFF SMELLEY
One of the Bradford County School District’s newest Tornadoes must’ve felt like he was caught up in a tornado at times, but Clayton McPeak is ready to go into the school year as the new director of the Bradford Middle School and Bradford High School band programs.
It has been a whirlwind summer that consisted of long days after McPeak was hired in June. When he sat in his office at BHS at 3 p.m. on Aug. 1 to participate in the interview for this Telegraph-Times-Monitor story, McPeak said it was the first time he had arrived at the office in the afternoon. He’s spent full days trying to take inventory of what’s at his disposal.
“I’ve usually been in here at 9 or 10 (in the morning),” McPeak said. “I’ve literally been opening cabinet doors, going, ‘OK. What’s in here?’”
He’s also met teachers and school staff who’ve been “positive” and “uplifting,” while the interactions he’s had with high school band students have been enjoyable. That had him saying, “If the rest of the year is like these past two weeks, I think we’re going to have a lot of fun. It’s a great opportunity, I believe.”
McPeak said the band director he had as a student in middle school inspired him to want to teach music. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Music at Temple Terrace’s Florida College.
His first teaching experience occurred at a Tampa-area Christian academy, where he spent five years. He described his time there as a “blast.”
McPeak moved to North Central Florida (his parents live in Lake City), which led to him taking a job at Fort White High School as a math teacher. However, he would eventually become involved in music again.
“They found out I had a music background and kind of threw me into Beginning Band, which was fun,” McPeak said. “Great opportunities.”
The covid year happened, with McPeak saying when school resumed, he returned to teaching just math.
A fellow math teacher told him that Suwannee High School was looking for a band director. McPeak said his response was, “Yeah. Let’s try it out. This could be a lot of fun.”
“I went there and had some great support,” McPeak said. “My principal at the time was a former band director. We understood each other very well. It was great.”
It was a position McPeak held for three years until what he described as “a misalignment with our philosophy of music education” led him to leave.
McPeak said he was “just kind of in limbo” when a friend informed him of the Bradford district’s need for a band director. That friend did more than just tell him about it, with McPeak saying she “kind of poked me a little bit.”
That poke led to an enjoyable interview with BHS Principal Chris Coffey and BMS Principal Crystal Williams.
“We only got to like one question on the interview sheet,” McPeak said. “We were just talking. We had a very comfortable feeling. I was just like, ‘You know what? Let’s give it a shot. Let’s have some fun.’”
McPeak brings with him a history of building programs — music and non-music.
The Christian academy he taught at had music classes, but no actual bands. When McPeak left, the school had two or three different bands.
At Fort White, McPeak coached boys soccer besides teaching. The soccer program grew to where a junior varsity program was added.
During his time at Suwannee, the number of band students increased.
Regarding growth in the Bradford programs, McPeak said, “Slowly, it’s going to happen.”
Goals
When it comes to what he wants to accomplish with the Bradford bands, McPeak said his focus is on the third of the three “C”s students learn in band. The first two “C”s are “creativity” and “commitment,” while the third is “community.” McPeak said students first learn to play for themselves and then learn to play for the people around them. After that, it becomes playing for the community.
“The community aspect, I think, is huge,” McPeak said. “I’ll be looking for opportunities to put the kids out there. Of course, I can’t do it every week, but I want to give them chances to play for others and for others to experience that. Excitement creates excitement.”
Another goal of McPeak’s is to “understand the traditions of Bradford.”
“I want to understand what the community holds to,” he said. “Then, I want to try to give them those same traditions.”
Performing well at music-performance assessments would be another goal to strive for. McPeak said he’d like it if Bradford could earn all top marks (Superior) throughout the year, but noted that you have to take small steps to get to that point.
“It’s a progression,” he said. “You can’t just come in and be like, ‘We’re changing everything. We’re doing this now.’ You can’t do that, but you can be like, ‘OK. Let’s do our small goals.’”
When you reach a small goal, McPeak said you celebrate it and then say, “All right. What’s next?”
McPeak plans to encourage students to audition for area honor bands. He referenced a common saying: “You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.”
“What’s interesting is the kids who never thought they could make it end up making it,” McPeak said. “They were like, ‘I never thought I’d make it.’ Well, why (did they make it)? They tried. That was it.”
He may be a music teacher, but McPeak is also a cheerleader. He will express the confidence in those students who doubt themselves. If he encourages students to do something, and they reply that they can’t, he will tell them, “Yeah, you can. Maybe not today, but you can do this. You can absolutely do this.”
Any successful band program has tremendous support, and McPeak has already seen that with the BHS Band Boosters.
“There was a fear the school year would start, and there would not be a director,” McPeak said, adding, “At the high school level, (the Band Boosters) were willing to step in and be like, ‘OK. How do we take it from here until you find someone?’ That’s positive.”
McPeak would love to receive support from beyond the parents who are Band Boosters. He encourages Bradford band alumni, musicians in general and even music studios to contact him at one of the schools (904-966-6075 at BHS or 904-966-6705 at BMS) if there are interested in helping in any way.
“We may not know what their talents are, but we can always find a place for someone,” McPeak said.
