BAND LEADER TO TAKE REINS AT GATOR BOWL

When the bowl season rolls around, it is show time for Southeast Missouri State University band director Barry Bernhardt.

The 36-year-old Bernhardt, who heads up the university's Golden Eagles Marching Band, has directed halftime shows for the nation's bowl games since 1988. He is in his fifth year as Southeast's band director.

This year, he will direct the halftime show of the Gator Bowl Friday in Gainesville, Fla. He will direct a massed band comprised of musicians from the University of Tennessee and Virginia Tech marching bands and about a dozen high schools.

This will mark Bernhardt's second halftime show this year. In August, he directed the halftime performance at the Kickoff Classic at the Meadowlands Stadium in Newark, N.J. The nationally televised game annually marks the start of the college football season.

Bernhardt is one of a number of college band directors who are hired by Bowl Games of America of Salt Lake City. The company produces most of the halftime shows for the nation's bowl games. Each show generally involves a crew of three assistant directors and the head director.

"It is a rush," Bernhardt said, noting that a halftime show for a bowl game involves about 2,000 performers and takes place before a crowd of 70,000 to 90,000 people.

"It is one of the greatest natural highs for a band director," he said, a smile playing at his beard.

Although the games are televised, generally little is broadcast of the halftime shows. Still, there is always the opportunity for some of the show to be seen on national television.

Putting together the pieces of a halftime show is a challenging task, particularly when there is little time for rehearsals.

For the Gator Bowl, Bernhardt will have only six hours of rehearsal time spread over two days in Jacksonville, Fla. The game itself will be played in Gainesville because the Jacksonville stadium is being renovated for the city's new National Football League team.

"To do this show, we'll have less rehearsal time than I have in a week with the Golden Eagles," Bernhardt said.

The walls of his modest office in Brandt Hall are covered with photographs of various halftime shows he helped direct.

There are two pictures of halftime activities at the Jan. 31, 1988, Super Bowl at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego.

"We had 88 grand pianos on the field, 44 white and 44 black ones," recalled Bernhardt, who helped direct the San Diego State and University of Southern California marching bands for the show.

Bernhardt said he spent a week rehearsing separately with each band.

"We probably spent 30 or 35 hours rehearsing for a 10-minute-long show," he said.

For a college bowl game, the halftime show generally lasts 18 minutes. Each team's college band plays for six minutes. The heart of the halftime show is the other six minutes, which involves high school bands and the two college bands performing together.

Bernhardt could care less about which teams are playing. His attention is focused on only one thing: the halftime performance.

"I am getting paid a lot of money to go in and pull something off that is difficult to do."

Last December, he directed the Liberty Bowl halftime show in Memphis and then caught a flight to Jacksonville to direct the Gator Bowl show.

An energetic man, Bernhardt's duties at Southeast are many. Besides the marching band, he directs the Show Band, the University Concert Band and the Jazz Band. He also is chairman of the music department's scholarship and recruiting committee and directs the summer music camps.

"I don't have summers off. I don't have Christmas holidays off."

But Bernhardt wouldn't have it any other way. For him, life is always on an up beat.