Hillsboro fans have been enjoying the new and improved sounds of the high school band at football games this year and even witnessed the band perform together as a marching band at a recent home football game.
All of it has been thanks to the new USD 410 Band Director Jasmine Colle.
Colle grew up in a small town in Kansas called Alden and attended school in the Sterling School District.
“So my background is pretty rural, small-town feeling,” said Colle. “That’s where I learned a lot of what I know now coming from Sterling since it’s a similar size school. ”
After graduating high school, she attended Kansas State University for four years where she got her music education degree and was a part of a number of ensembles and activities including the marching band.
“I was able to learn a lot and network at K-State to be able to grow to where I am now with my things in music,” said Colle.
Colle’s background in music started young.
“I started taking piano in fourth grade. I started learning saxophone in sixth grade. I did band throughout middle school, high school and college,” said Colle. “I was also a choir kid at K-State. I kind of had the choice to go into what instrument I wanted or decide if I wanted to do voice. And since I ended up doing the marching band, I kind of fell into it. I played alto saxophone. I was in the section there. I chose piano as my main instrument, so I was able to kind of be in a lot of different departments there.”
Colle said she fell in love with the instrument side of things and decided to dedicate more emphasis there for her career.
While finishing up senior year and student teaching, Colle and her now husband Kevin began applying to schools to teach at and both decided to apply for positions in USD 410 when they came open in January of this year—she applied for the band position and he applied for the social studies position. They both interviewed with high school principal Tyler Weinbrenner and got the jobs.
“We’ve had a very busy year. We graduated, and we had our wedding. We bought a house here in town, we had our honeymoon, and we are both first-year teachers this year. It’s been a lot to go through, but it’s been good that we’ve been able to be in the same district together and we’re not alone going through everything,” said Colle.
Colle has enjoyed her time teaching band so far and is enjoying getting to know her students and their talents. She felt the challenge though of coming into a program and not being left with much direction since the former band director had left suddenly during the previous school year.
“The first couple weeks, I didn’t know exactly where the students were talent-wise. I didn’t know any of them so I had to not just learn names but also know what I could teach them or where we could go with the year,” said Colle.
But she jumped in and found her groove with the students. The students began improving right away and many noticed it immediately.
“Mrs. Colle has been a great addition to our school, bringing lots of passion and knowledge to our band program. She has already built positive relationships with students and staff. I look forward to seeing Mrs. Colle’s continued impact on our band program and our school,” said HMHS Principal Tyler Weinbrenner.
One thing Colle knew she wanted to do was start marching band for the high schoolers.
“So I put quite a few hours in before the school year started trying to organize the classroom a little bit and figure out what I wanted to do with them,” said Colle.
She said she spent the first couple of class periods just trying to get a feel for what the students wanted to do and for what she could motivate them to do.
“And then we started going out to the field, and it just seemed like it really clicked with them. They wanted to try to get better every time. It was a little bit brand new to them at first about everything. But with homecoming being so early this year, I had to prep them with the parade so fast. That kind of transitioned us to marching band rehearsals,” said Colle.
She also talked with her contacts in Riley County where she had student taught about a festival called Band-tober Marching Festival. She decided to take her high school band there to participate in a clinic and then compete in a performance for the judges. Her band performed with seven other schools and won the Best Music trophy in spite of being the smallest band there.
“They performed really well. And they seem to have a lot of fun at the football games. We had four home games and we were able to do our performances for the student section and the crowd, and they’ve seemed to really kind of have a love for playing in front of people, which is really neat to see,” said Colle.
She said that the success of the high schoolers has gotten her younger band students excited and wanting to march as well. The younger students are also enjoying learning more about their instruments and band in general.
“My middle school ensembles are having fun playing their songs. We have a concert on Thursday so they’re doing rehearsals. And my fifth-grade beginners are just now playing songs and reading music and so each aspect of that has been different and fun in their own ways,” Colle said.
It’s clear when watching them perform that the students and their band teacher are enjoying performing and learning to play their best. Fans can anticipate much more coming from the bands at USD 410.
“Mrs. Colle has done a phenomenal job as a 1st year teacher. Her passion for teaching is inspiring and I look forward to all of the great things she will do,” said USD 410 Superintendent Clint Corby.
