RETIRED DIRECTOR OF CAPE CENTRAL BAND RECIEVES HONOR AT JACKSON BAND FESTIVAL

JACKSON -- Ron Nall, who retired in 1998 as director of the Cape Girardeau Central High School band, was honored Tuesday night as more than 1,200 high school musicians from around the region performed en masse at the Jackson Marching Band Festival.

Nall and his wife, Anita, were recognized along with their children Daron, Jeffrey and Lesley, and Nall's parents, John and Eileen Nall.

Nall graduated from Southeast Missouri State University in 1966 and became the director of the marching band program at Cape Central in 1988. His bands earned 10 straight "1" ratings in district competitions, and the marching band received statewide recognition.

The Poplar High School graduate retired from the Cape Girardeau schools but continues to work as an adjudicator and clinician.

The 55th annual festival kicked off as always with a parade through downtown Jackson on a glistening Tuesday afternoon. All Jackson elementary and middle-school students were let out of class to watch the parade.

Folks from the Lutheran Home were brought in a van to watch the parade while sitting in front of St. Paul Lutheran Church.

The Jackson High School Freshman Band got the parade off to a bouncing start as they marched down South High Street to the Pointer Sisters' "Neutron Dance." Eighteen more bands followed, climaxed by the Jackson Marching Chiefs playing "Everything's Coming Up Roses." The spectators along the route showed their hometown pride as they rose to greet the Jackson band.

"This is the pride of Jackson," Jackson band director Pat Schwent said later. "The kids don't realize that until they're out of it."

The bands ranged in size from tiny -- Clearwater High School had only 21 members -- to Jackson's 162-member throng, which is separated by a percussion section dressed in tuxedos. The marching songs varied from Sikeston's "Yankee Doodle Dandy/This Land is Your Land" medley to Delta High School's rendition of Deep Purple's rock anthem "Smoke on the Water."

The Advance Marching Hornets were one of the more distinctive bands in the festival. The band marched to Earth, Wind and Fire's "Star," a tune with a difficult syncopated rhythm.

The crisp-looking band in white from Advance won the marching band trophy at the SEMO District Fair Parade last month and has won the Stoddard County Fair competition five years in a row.

The band has 98 members from a high school with a student body of only about 140.

Director Bob Moses said his band had only 35 or 40 members when he started. The numbers started mounting with its success.

"It just snowballed," he said. "The kids are proud to be in the band."

The school doesn't play football, but almost all the basketball players and football players are in the band, said Moses, a Southeast graduate in his 15th year directing the band.

"The key is not making them choose," he said. "When school districts make kids choose, all the programs suffer."