CRESTVIEW — A band member’s jacket from the debut of what is today's Crestview High School band now hangs in CHS's office.
On June 4, 1938, under founding director Romulus H. Thompson's baton, the Okaloosa School Band made its public debut with a march up Main Street followed by a concert on the courthouse lawn.
Clara Jo Teel, then Milligan, was just a first-grader when she donned the red jacket with white trim and played in the elementary student rhythm band, which followed the high school students.
“We had triangles and rhythm sticks and tambourines,” Teel said. “When the band did their first performance, they had us march behind.”
When she entered high school eight years later, Teel joined what by then was called the Crestview High School band, known familiarly as the Big Red Machine.
THE JACKET
Teel kept the jacket for more than 70 years. In March, she told her daughter, Crestview insurance agent Ann Teel Hatcher, that she wanted to present the jacket to the high school band.
“I thought that was so sweet that that’s what she wanted for her birthday, so I set out to make that dream come true for her,” Teel Hatcher said.
To help preserve the jacket, Teel Hatcher said the shadow-box framing includes museum-quality protective glass.
“Instead of just taking it to the high school and dropping it off, I set it up with (band Director) Jody Dunn to have the presentation during the spring concert,” she said.
“I just treasured it all these years,” Teel said. “I’m 84 now and I thought, I’ll just give it up…I didn’t want to throw it away and I didn’t know what else to do with it. I thought the high school was a good place for it.”
Teel said the jackets she and her fellow elementary school musicians wore were well made.
“I wondered who made all of them,” Teel said. “The mothers, I reckon, because they weren’t bought. They were handmade.”
The jacket is temporarily displayed in the high school office until a permanent spot can be found to exhibit it.
“It just creates a legacy of where the band started and the foresight of that band director (Thompson) to start with children in elementary school learning rhythm,” Teel Hatcher said.
Email News Bulletin Staff Writer Brian Hughes, follow him on Twitter or call 850-682-6524.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Original Okaloosa School Band jacket presented to Crestview High band