Dillon’s band aid

Batesburg-Leesville students give band a hand

By BILL ROBINSON - brobinson@thestate.com

DILLON — Instruments are obstacles no longer for J.V. Martin Junior High School students who want to learn to play music.

A ragtag collection of bent-up brass and out-of-tune woodwind loaners will be cast aside for 82 reconditioned replacements, each a goodwill gift delivered Tuesday by Batesburg-Leesville High’s concert band.

“Now, everybody has an opportunity to be in the band,” said Vonicia McCollum, 13, a J.V. Martin trumpet player.

The Lexington 3 school kept a promise to help a struggling music program that had 40 past-their-prime instruments and twice as many students who longed to play them.

“I learned it was cool to give away stuff. Anybody can do it,” said drummer Tanaisha Carmichael, 14, of J.V. Martin.

“God answered all our prayers,” said Kevin McLellan, J.V. Martin’s second-year music teacher. “They are like our angels.”

A State newspaper photograph of a student playing a badly dented tuba inspired “Music Replay,” a used-instrument drive that Batesburg-Leesville teens, their parents and a Columbia-area merchant organized in January to help the DILLON school.

Both districts are rural in nature, but DILLON attracts attention as an example of school systems in eastern South Carolina that struggle economically because of few economic opportunities.

Some of McLellan’s students looked on in disbelief at dozens of instrument cases scattered on multiple levels of McLellan’s amphitheater-style music room.

Inside each was a shiny trumpet or trombone, a clarinet or a brightly polished flute.

There also were two tubas.

‘IT WOULD BE COOL’

Seventh-grader Jessica Kidd, 13, cradled a flute in both hands.

She had found it in the pile of cases and pledged to work up the nerve to ask McLellan if it could be assigned to her.

Her mother’s old flute has been difficult to play lately, she said in a barely audible voice.

A more outgoing John Pinkney, 14, said the donations have him excited about the prospects of signing up to learn the trumpet next fall.

“I found one that I’d like to try. I think it would be cool.”

A DIFFERENT DRUMMER

The presentation of the reconditioned instruments came after a lively mini-concert by B-L’s Panther Band and after professional percussionist Les Cleveland wowed 200-plus middle-schoolers with a high-energy 30-minute drum solo.

Formerly of Columbia, Cleveland has performed with pop-music stars Prince, Patti LaBelle and Roberta FlackCleveland told his youthful audience that learning to play music helped him focus on getting an education and steered him away from trouble.

Cleveland even let Nyeishea Townsend, 14, sit behind his cherry-red Tama drums and coaxed her into pounding out a few beats simultaneously on a snare drum and a cymbal, much to the delight of peers watching from the bleachers of the 82-year-old school gym.

“They’re being so nice giving us instruments,” Nyeishea said. “It meant so much.”

Cleveland understood just how much. “Music is one of the most important things you can do,” the drummer said afterward. “Can you imagine the world without music?”

‘THE GIFT OF MUSIC’

Principal Amanda Burnette said “the smiles on the faces” of the students heartened her.

“I know these kids will now be able to stay after school and practice their music.”

And that, she said, is a good thing.

Mitch Thompson, a senior tuba player in the Batesburg-Leesville band, would agree. He said he was proud to play a role in finding used instruments a new life in a school that sorely needed them.

“I think we definitely did something for a very good cause,” Thompson said. “It helps other people learn the gift of music we have.”

Call Robinson at (803) 771-8482.