DR-M’s last concert
By ANDREA FURLONG
Had it still had its high school, the last sports game at Deep River-Millersburg (DR-M) might have been the pivotal event where DR-M residents, staff and students mourned the loss of the school, while celebrating one last chance to play as the Falcons. However, since the Falcons wings were clipped with the closing of DR-M’s high school in 1992, DR-M Elementary’s April 28 spring music concert held all the significance that would have been placed on the last game.
The fact that the music program has remained intact up through the school’s final year, with a vocal director, band director and private lessons, has been a triumph in itself.
“These kids have had every opportunity to participate in all the things kids at a larger school have because they kept their music and kept their art and kept their (physical education) going with specialized teachers,” said Gary Huxford, DR-M band instructor.
For the last concert, the school’s 49 K-6 students sang Disney songs. The final two songs, the DR-M High School fight song and “We Will Go On,” were performed in unison by every student and DR-M full-time faculty member, including the principal.
The last two years DR-M has ended its Christmas concerts with a song performed by the whole school—teachers and students—in unison, but DR-M’s vocal director, Judy Huxford, said she thought it would be fitting to use the tradition for the last concert.
Huxford said a year ago she and her husband, Gary, began scouting for music to perform at the school’s final concert, but it wasn’t until six months ago at a concert in Branson, Mo., that she and her husband heard the song they thought would best end the school’s concert. It was a special piece written for Hurricane Katrina victims called “We Will Go On.”
The school’s students and teachers and some audience members sang the song in unison at the concert. As the last song on the program, it became the last song to be performed in DR-M’s auditorium, while the building is still known as DR-M Elementary.
“The title says it all . . . no matter what happens to this school district, everybody is going to go on their separate ways . You don’t dream of what might have been, you just go on,” Gary Huxford said.
DR-M School Board President Ronald Grimm, a graduate of the former Millersburg High School, said the Huxfords could not have picked a better song to describe DR-M’s situation. The DR-M School District is just a few months away from reorganizing with the English Valleys School District, while DR-M students will attend Montezuma or English Valleys schools or open-enroll to others after the summer is over.
“I thought the last song where everybody sang really summed up in all of our lives and the childrens’ lives what DR-M is going through. I thought it was very fitting,” Grimm said.
Joni Icenbice, a DR-M teacher and graduate of DR-M High School, said the program itself carried special meaning for everyone there, including teachers.
“It was definitely sad. There were a few of us that were shedding tears,” she said.
DR-M TRADITIONS
DR-M concerts are different from the stereotypical elementary concert. Tradition is a vital part of the program, whether it’s the whole school singing a song together, the entire fourth grade performing pieces on the recorder, incorporating students’ original artwork into the performance or allowing the sixth graders to choreograph and perform and their own dance each year.
Since coming out of retirement to lead the music programs at DR-M, it was the Huxfords who introduced many of the traditions in the last five to eight years.
Judy said she has led the music programs in a way she hopes would best utilize the community spirit already present in the school.
“There is a real deep feeling of community spirit at that place. Over the five years I’ve been there . . .I’ve seen they really work together well. They’re proud of their school and their school is a big part of their community. A lot of that (school spirit) was already there by the time we walked in, so you try to utilize that . . . and to include everyone,” she said.
Including everyone meant continuing the tradition of giving every sixth grader a chance to emcee at some point in the production. It also meant dividing a solo, so that several students could each have their own speaking or singing part if they wanted.
Judy noted DR-M’s small number of students per grade worked to students’ advantage for musical productions because everybody who wanted a turn at something could have one.
“I try to make sure everybody has something to do — that’s the gloriouis thing of a small school with small classes . . . they really do get to do a lot,” she said.
Judy noted the small class sizes also made it easier to allow the students to have more input in their performances — the chance to decide what changes they could make to the song to make it their own.
“One of my pet peeves is when (schools) have students file in on the risers, sing their two songs and they file off the stage. I just think we need a little more variety,” she said.
CURTAIN CALL FOR THE HUXFORDS
DR-M’s spring concert was not only the last concert for the school but also for the Huxfords. Judy will retire after five years at DR-M, with 37 years of teaching experience. Gary will retire with eight years at DR-M and 36 years overall as a teacher.
Though the two came out of retirement once (from Iowa Valley Schools) in order to teach at DR-M, they said that DR-M’s last hurrah will be theirs, as well.
“We usually tell people that we had such a good experience at DR-M that we don’t want to go in and substitute — that we want to (retire) with this last memory,” Judy said.
FINAL PERFORMANCE
While the students have given their last performance at DR-M, the school’s 10 band students will perform one last time at the Millersburg Senior Dining Center Tuesday, May 12, at 12:20 p.m.
UPDATED May 9, 2009 2:01 PM