He’Ll Retire, but Not From Music: He Leaves a Legacy of Award-Winning Bands and Memorable Sayings
By Steve Lyttle, The Charlotte Observer, N.C.
Jun. 11–”That sounds much less bad.”
Yes, communications will be a bit different this fall in the Providence High School band room.
Ron Payne — leader of award-winning bands, friend to thousands of students and creator of memorable phrases — is retiring.
“I guess I’m taking the sayings with me,” Payne, 53, said with a laugh one recent afternoon, as he walked through the deserted band room where he has taught for eight years.
A lot more will be missing in August, when a new director and assistant director replace Payne and aide Michael Hough.
Gone will be Payne’s 29 years of high school music teaching experience, which also included 14 years at Independence High School before he went to Providence in 1998. Dozens of his former students — including Hough — are teaching music at schools across the Southeast. Some are making careers as professional musicians.
And many others have taken with them the memories of studying under Payne, a man who says music remains a passion with him after nearly three decades in the classroom.
“I’ve never lost that love of music, and of working with the students,” he said. “Each year, each group, has a different personality. That’s what makes this so interesting.”
During a recent appreciation dinner for Payne sponsored by the Providence Band Boosters, several students and speakers talked about the close bonds of friendship formed between musicians and director. Providence High Principal Terri Cockerham said “the students love” Payne and his teaching style.
Payne says he thinks students enjoy his classes and the marching band because they see a little of themselves in him.
“I love music, but I think this should be fun, too,” he said.
Payne, a Kings Mountain native, earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from East Carolina University and then launched the instrumental music program at Ayden-Grifton High School in the eastern part of the state. After seven years there, he landed the job at Independence High.
“When I arrived at Independence, there were only a few dozen students in the music program,” he recalled. “By the end of the first year, we had 75.”
In 14 years, working much of that time with two other outstanding music teachers — choral director Jim Boyce, who also is retiring this year; and orchestra director Sabrina Howard, now teaching in the Winston-Salem area — Payne built a music program that brought numerous awards in the 1980s and 1990s.
When his youngest son, Adam, graduated from Independence in 1998, Payne decided to try something new.
He moved to Providence High, and served two years as assistant director to the legendary, late Robert Maddox.
“Getting to work with someone like Dr. Maddox was a real thrill, and it helped fill out my teaching background,” Payne said.
After Maddox retired, Payne became director of a program that this year had 277 students enrolled in classes.
Under Payne’s tutelage, Providence bands won a Superior rating (the top rating) each year in district competition for wind ensembles, and captured Superior ratings most years for its symphonic band and concert band groups.
Payne served a term as chairman of the North Carolina Schools Bandmaster Association and recently was selected to conduct the 2007-08 All-State Band, which features the top high school musicians in the state. Several of Payne’s students at Independence and Providence have been picked in past years for All-State Band honors.
“Being picked to conduct the All-State Band is an honor that’s tough to put into words,” Payne said.
And it points to the fact that Payne is not walking away from music.
He said he might teach again, perhaps in a private school or in South Carolina. And he will remain active as an occasional community band director.
But there will be more time for his wife, his three children, his two grandchildren, and to make some improvements in his golf game — “I love golf, but I’m terrible at it.
“I feel sadness every year, when I see a group of students leave,” he said. “This year, it’s a whole lot worse.”
The Payne file
RON PAYNE
Age: 53.Family: Wife, Gail; grown sons, Alex and Adam; stepdaughter, Heather Hope; two grandchildren.
Hobbies: Sports (he’s a big fan of the Panthers, UNC and Providence); performing with the Carolina Wind Ensemble; travel to the Caribbean.
Music background: He plays about a dozen instruments, and specializes in the euphonium, a brass instrument.
Some of those famous Payne sayings: “Don’t look at me with that tone of voice”; “That sounds much less bad”; and “Thank you for letting me yell and fuss at you.”
COMING TO PROVIDENCE
In addition to Payne’s departure, assistant director Michael Hough, a student of Payne’s years ago at Independence, is leaving Providence to pursue a master’s degree.
The new director will be Paul Jackson, most recently band director at Forest Hills High School in Union County. His assistant will be Scott Mills, who has been assistant director at Jay M. Robinson High School in Cabarrus County.
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Copyright (c) 2006, The Charlotte Observer, N.C.
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
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