CHS Band Director Jim Woodford retires after 33 years of service
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By LeAnn R. Ralph
COLFAX — After serving as the band director at Colfax High School for 33 years, Jim Woodford retired at the end of the 2018-2019 school year.
Woodford, along with other retirees, including Kara Zutter, business education teacher; Charlie Owen, bus driver; Jon Suckow, bus driver; and Darrell Schauer, custodian and maintenance, were honored at the Colfax school district’s staff appreciation banquet May 29 at Whitetail Golf Course.
“Mr. James Woodford has been a high school and middle school band teacher for many years. And Mr. Woodford has been a leader of the band for his entire career. Along with leading the high school and middle school band, he is also the director of Ludington Guard Band, where he has been inducted into the state Conductors Hall of Fame,” said William C. Yingst Jr., school superintendent.
“Jim is also loved by his students. He’s the type of guy who is very quiet in the hallway, or when you see him getting cookies or any other type of food. But then when he’s performing, he goes through this transformation, singing loud and playing loud and running around,” Yingst said.
“We may not have huge numbers in our band, but we put out some great sound. Mr. Woodford has a strange schedule because of his performances, following evening athletic events, concerts, tournaments, state send-offs, weekend parades, Vietnam Veterans Memorial program or any other special event that may arise. Our band always sounds great and looks sharp,” Yingst said.
Here are some of Woodford’s thoughts on more than three decades at Colfax High School:
I don’t know how to begin this. How do you sum up 33 years of being a band director?
I was talking with my wife, Julia, about what I was going to say, and I decided to do it Jeff Foxworthy style.
You know you are a band director when you go on your first friendship lunch date with your future wife, and the whole restaurant is filled with students who yell out, “Hi, Mr. Woodford!” and then whisper with each other throughout the rest of your meal.
You know you are a band director when your wife straps our baby into a front pack and marches alongside the band to spray them with water so they don’t pass out along the parade route.
You know you are a band director when your idea of dinner and a date is at Chanhassen Dinner Theater, along with the fifty other students we brought with us.
You know you are a band director when your wife says she has seen more of my backside than my front side [turns and demonstrates conducting the band].
You know you are a band director when you consider your family some 70 kids large.
You know you are a band director when all your students chip in to buy you a cool leather jacket, so you can wear that title they gave you of a Bad-ass Band Director, riding your moped in the winter in the snow.
You know you’ve mastered being a band director when duct tape and popsicle sticks become the solution to all kinds of emergency repairs for uniforms and for instruments.
You know you’ve mastered being a band director when your toolbox always has a stash of Kleenex to wipe away the tears and ear plugs for those difficult days when they can’t play.
You know you’ve mastered being a band director when you know every tune that’s ever been written in three different key signatures, styles and difficulty levels and you know exactly what difficulty level your students can do to maximize [the tune].
You know you’ve been a band director too long when your students buy you a walker with a horn to honk after a back injury.
You know you’ve been a band director too long when your wife says you’re going deaf because the rest of the neighborhood hears her before you do.
You know you’ve been a band director too long when going to a concert seems like work.
And you know you’ve been a band director for too long when you realize you are teaching the third generation of students you had in band 30 years ago, and just about every one you do business with are ex band students who cannot believe you are still teaching.
Highlights
Woodford continued:
There are so many memories I have of all of the colleagues I have worked with that I couldn’t possibly list or remember all of them. If I don’t mention you tonight, just know I’ve thought a lot about you and how we’ve worked together, and I will always remember you.
Here are a few highlights from my Colfax years —
When I first came to Colfax, Lee Bjurquist had hired me for Colfax High School and Middle School. I was it. We only had two music directors at the time, one for elementary and one for 7-12.
Joe Alms was elementary music and five and six band director.
At that time, I think the kindergarten teachers taught their own music.
I started with around 55 kids in band but only 12 or 13 in choir.
Just so everyone knows, singing is not my forte, but we had fun, and we gave some good concerts anyway.
Todd Kragness [school board president] was in that first choir … but we made it through to the end of the year.
Lee told me at the time that if I got a lot of kids interested in choir, he would hire a choir director and then I could just do band.
So — guess what?!?
I worked really hard to build up the choir, and by end of the second year, there were 40-plus kids in choir.
After that, there were a couple of interim choir directors and then came [several] wonderful teachers … and [then] Carrie Christensen.
Al Stai and Bill LaRue were the principals when I was hired. After that came Gary Hoffman, Ron Fandry, Dennis Geissler, Bill Yingst and John Dachel.
Some of the first colleagues and friends I got to know when I came to Colfax were people like Toby Horn, Frank Keyes, Jerry Slind, Donna Higbie, Eve Suckow, Sharon Gunderson, Kathy Mikesell, Guidance Counselor Kathy Anderson, Tom Millar …
When I first came to Colfax, the staff at that time were all very good friends, and a big talking point among the staff was, who is going to get married next?
When it came time for Connie Gibson to marry Gene, we had a little get-together, and after it was over, everyone went their separate ways, or so Connie thought.
The rest of us stayed together, and later that night, we brought back the old tradition of shivaree. We snuck up below her window and began screaming and banging on things, shouting, “SHIVAREE.”
Lunch
Some of the best times I had at Colfax occurred at lunch time.
A bunch of us would eat school lunch, and we decided it would be one person’s job to bring the trays back to the kitchen, so we would flip a coin. One day, however, Tom Millar had a Canadian nickel.
On one side of the coin was the portrait of the Queen of England, and on the other side, it had a beaver.
So, if you flipped coin and got the beaver, you were okay. But if you flipped the coin and got the Queen, you had to take everyone’s tray back to the kitchen.
Now, imagine the scene: you are a new teacher or a student teacher and you’re in the lounge eating, and a bunch of guys are sitting around a table eating, and all of a sudden one of them stands up, usually Tom Millar, and loudly states, “Okay, guys, it’s time to flip the beaver.”
One thing I remember is we never had this awards banquet when I first started …
It took a couple of years to finalize how the awards would look. When the Viking statue for 25 years came out, it looked like a troll. Eventually the design changed to what it is today, but for the first few years we all walked around asking each other, “Are you going to get the troll?”
I can remember one year when Ron Fandry got his five-year paperweight. It’s a square block of wood with a medallion glued on the top of it engraved with a Viking.
Ron was on a trip up north and set the award on his dash. It was a hot, sunny day, and Ron was wearing shorts. As the sun beat down on the dash, it melted the glue.
All of a sudden, Ron hits a bump. The medallion flips up off of the wood, up in the air and lands on Ron’s leg, burning a red circle. I don’t think it etched a Viking on his leg, but forever after that, he was branded a Viking.
Another funny thing I remember as band director is that I had a lot of kids get their pictures taken. One year, I had the kids sit on the ledge of the concession stand with the rest of them in front. It was a fairly large group, and Marlin Raveling [news editor at the Messenger] was taking the picture. When he was done, I said, “Nobody move so he can get the names in the right place.” Marlin looked at his notes, glanced up at the kids and said, “Nah. That’s okay. I think I know everyone’s name. Thanks, Dave.”
Missing tuner
One year, I had a particularly creative class. I had misplaced a tuner I used for band, and I asked the students if they had seen it.
At the end of the day, I went out to my truck, and taped to the windshield was a double-A battery and a ransom note. It was just like a 1970s crime movie where they cut off someone’s finger to prove they had kidnapped that person. I remember the note said, “Mr. Woodford, We have the tuner. Do not attempt to contact us. We will contact you with further instructions.” For the rest of the week, I was getting more ransom notes and farther out of tune. They finally gave it back …
There are so many more memories I have, but I don’t want this to get too long.
I remember early-morning supervising the parking lot with Mike Gullickson, both of us wearing snowmobile suits because it was so cold outside …
I remember having to completely unload the bus at state basketball to get the horns out, and having to completely unload the bus just to get them back in.
I remember enforcing no cigarette smoking, and a student putting a lit cigarette in his pocket, and his pocket catching on fire.
I remember having to move the band room into the gym for part of the year for remodeling and asbestos removal.
I’ve been a host of characters at concerts, including Austin Powers, Batman, Frankenstein, Superman and an Austrian Alps singer dressed in lederhosen.
I’ve also been Sitting Bull in “Annie Get Your Gun.”
The Colfax band has performed at UFO Days, Bloomer Days, Rutabaga Festival, Cucumber Festival, Aquatennial, Pure Water Days, Rustic Lore Days, Prescott Dam Days, Amery, Clear Lake, Minnesota State Fair, Somerset, Wisconsin Dells, Valley Fair, Menomonie, New Richmond and many years of jazz at the Colfax Free Fair in the summer.
Friends and family
Woodford expressed his appreciation for all of the choir directors, teachers, administrators, paraprofessionals, office staff, custodians and bus drivers he had worked with over the years.
“I have 33 years of names to mention, so I won’t do it now. It has been a fantastic career with all of you in it, and I will miss you all very much,” he said.
Woodford expressed appreciation for his family as well.
“Lastly I want to thank my family. My kids Angel, Rachel, Nathaniel, and especially the love of my life, Julia. There is no way I could have done this career for this long without your unfailing support.
Thank you for all the nights, weekends and summers you gave up so I could do my job. I love you all very much,” he said.