{"id":208,"date":"2009-04-21T13:29:54","date_gmt":"2009-04-21T21:29:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rayivey.com\/wordpress\/?p=208"},"modified":"2009-04-21T13:29:54","modified_gmt":"2009-04-21T21:29:54","slug":"pete-rodriguez-1929-2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rayivey.com\/wordpress\/pete-rodriguez-1929-2009\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"rss\"<\/a>\"instagram\"<\/a>

Pete Rodriguez was my high school band director. <\/p>\n

In time since I’ve been in high school (and let’s face it, I graduated months and MONTHS ago), I’ve always had a moment of confusion when I hear peers talk about “band geeks” or “band queers.” Evidently it’s a tradition that people in high school band are looked down on by the general population.<\/p>\n

Know what? That wasn’t true in my high school. At Bryan High School, the band was widely acknowledged for its excellence and the school was damn proud of it. Why? Well, the answer is, mostly: Pete Rodriguez.<\/p>\n

Rodriguez (or “Mr. Rod” as he was universally known) had a quiet, no-nonsense demand for excellence which had a way of sneaking up on you and bringing out your best. He was also quirky, funny, smart, and talented. <\/p>\n

Never having been an athlete (as hard as that is to believe by looking at me), my experiences in speech\/drama and band were my “team” experiences in high school. And Pete Rodriquez was a wonderful coach. He had such confidence in his own abilities that he could afford to talk to you with respect, as if you were a peer. He knew that he could do this without any of us ever mistaking him as an equal — something that absure would have simply never occurred to any of us. However, the respect he gave us, individually and as a group, was quite empowering. <\/p>\n

We won lots of awards under his leadership, and had plenty of adventures on the football field and on the road. Perhaps our finest hour together occurred, ironically, in his absence. In 1975 he underwent bypass surgery and missed a few months of work. Under the skilled temporary leadership of Linda Adams and inspired by our desire to “win it for Mr. Rod, ” our symphonic band went on to win “Sweepstakes, ” which was the highest honor possible under the Texas University Interscholastic League’s yearly competition. <\/p>\n

Mr. Rod once made a prophetic statement. “You watch, ” he said. “You’ll see. As you get older you’ll find that a huge percentage of your good high school memories have to do with band.”<\/p>\n

Of course, he was right.<\/p>\n

I called his widow Mary today and told her I couldn’t imagine my high school experience without Pete Rodriguez. I was lucky to know him. <\/p>\n

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