Royce Hetrick set to retire this year talks about his journey to Hickory Grove and more - The Courier-Express

Posted: 29 Feb 2020 12:00 AM PST

BROOKVILLE — For Royce Hetrick, elementary music teacher at Hickory Grove, the path his life has taken seems like it was meant to be.

Graduating from Punxsutawney Area High School, he credits band director James Colonna, who was there for 36 years, with building a "wonderful program. Our bands were always top notch."

Hetrick says Colonna taught him a lot during his high school years. Colonna "played very good literature with us – hard, hard music but fun music; (he) really expected us to do a good job. I guess I learned that technique from him as well. I know they say that you learn from your college experience but I probably have more learning from Mr. Colonna in me than anything. That's probably who I feel that I try to emulate and learned the most from through my high school."

Hetrick also had metal and wood shops, drafting, etc. while in high school and thought he'd graduate and likely apply at Femco Machine Co. in Punxsutawney and work as a machinist. That all changed at his spring concert his senior year in high school.

"My parents attended and I had a trumpet solo. It was the Rafael Mendez famous trumpet solo, La Virgen De La Macarena (Bull Fighter's Song). I remember practicing for months to memorize it, I had a lot of 16th notes and very fast passages, very fiery Latin type of thing. After hearing it, my dad said 'Wow you're really playing the trumpet well, maybe you should go to be a music major; maybe you should think about doing that.' So that's what started the idea... It kind of changed everything all in a short period of time right at the end of the year."

While it was a "last minute thing" for Hetrick he says he thinks it was just "meant to be."

That belief seems all the more likely as no one else was musical in his family, although his dad, who worked as a coal miner, would joke that "he played the radio."

While playing for Colonna, Hetrick enjoyed the marches. "Mr. Colonna was a very old fashioned style – the traditional Italian style of conducting. We played lots of marches. We played good marches, very technical, very enjoyable marches. We played a lot of the good marches that were written in the early times of the march era. At that point I liked those styles the best. Probably my junior year, he started a stage band or like a jazz band, and that got me interested in jazz." Through college, he says, is where jazz really took hold and became one of his favorite (styles).

Hetrick would go on to Clarion University of Pennsylvania to earn a degree in education and to Youngstown State University for a master's degree in trumpet performance. In between those two degrees he would have his first teaching job at Kennedy Christian, now Kennedy Catholic, in Sharon, Pa.

He says he tells his students that during his time at YSU "there were many days when I probably played my trumpet five hours a day." Some of that time was when he was playing in a band or an ensemble but there were several times during a day that he'd go to the practice room and, well, practice. During his time there, he would play lead trumpet in one jazz ensemble and conduct another one.

Following college he returned to Pennsylvania but had a hard choice to make. "At that time, all within one week I had an interview at Titusville High School for the band job, at Redbank Valley High School for the band job, and I got a call from the Glenn Miller Band to go on the road. So it was a tough decision. I don't want to say I regret not playing with the Glenn Miller Band. Since then I've been on the same concert (stage) as them (while) being in another band, side by side in Pittsburgh, but I never played with them (as part of the band)." He chose the Redbank job, and lived at home with my parents as he wasn't married then. "In a way I do regret that I didn't do that (go on the road) but in the long run I think it's better off that I settled down more to this (teaching) as more of a solid career."

Before arriving at Hickory Grove Elementary School, his journey would lead him from Redbank to south of Pittsburgh and the Peters Township School District. By this time, he was already married to wife, Karen, who is also a music teacher, currently teaching in the Allegheny-Clarion Valley District.

What brought him back to Jefferson County was the fact that his parents were aging and having medical issues and it was hard for him to help them living three hours away. It would be Bill Ochs, a friend, who mentioned there might be a job opening in Brookville. Hetrick says, "It couldn't have worked out better. It's just a godsend that it worked out that way."

Teaching approachHetrick has brought some changes to the music program at the elementary school including the forming of a jazz band, which normally doesn't happen until the junior high level. "It's one of my favorite styles," he said. That change has grown as there are now 40 student musicians in the jazz band at the junior-senior high level.

After teaching for 39 years, Hetrick has also changed, at least in his approach to teaching. "It's an ongoing thing you continually change through the years. I found I don't know everything; that's the first thing you have to admit, you don't know everything and I think you're better off thinking that right away and you come up with ways to make things work. I think that's kept me fresh and kept me on top of where the kids are at and how they're different. I think I'm very fortunate to be at Brookville. Let's face it, I have enjoyed the kids here; the parents have been so supportive through the years. I've demanded a lot from the kids because I know that they're capable of doing it. You have to have patience in the elementary. It's a lot different than a high school. They learn the music a lot slower, but it's worth it to challenge them and I've always been a firm believer to challenge them. And that's why I've had to change my ideas of how to challenge them through the years, with less, probably less, time working with them now than I used to have. You have to come up with ways to make it work."

There is one very important part of playing a musical instrument that hasn't changed – practice. "That hasn't changed. And that sometimes makes it a little more difficult because they (the students) want that instant gratification that you get from the iPad or iPhone, and you still have to put in the time. Perfect practice makes perfect...if they practice they become a better player, then it's kind of infectious. The better you become, the more fun it is. If you don't practice, it's not going to be as fun, and you're not going to enjoy it as much. We call it the practice cycle."

To encourage students to practice, Hetrick has tried to include music that they enjoy. While he still does several "contest" pieces "because I know that it will cause them to become a better player by playing this technical music, but then I always try to play a popular song too, because that keeps them encouraged and they're more likely to practice... I think I've done that more recently than I have (in the past). If I look back, 15-20 years ago, I maybe was doing all heavy pieces, then, and not catering to them as much and I've learned to do that. And it has made it successful," he said.

"But I just think it is, you know, God has looked out for me. I'm a firm believer of that and many times I've prayed for him to give me just the strength, and to work hard and to do a good job with my kids and I know that's a big part of it – why we've been successful with our program," he said.

The hobbyWhile many people know Hetrick as a musician, they might not know that he also likes to rebuild antique cars and tractors. He said his dad always liked the antique cars. "I remember coming to Brookville to car shows... He told my mom he wanted to get a Model A Ford. It's a very good car for a first restoration because the parts are available and they're very simple. When you open the hood you actually see the engine instead of a multitude of wires and hoses. I was 10 years old when we ended up getting our first Model A. I remember bringing it home. It was a 29 black coupe, and I could take the head off and torque the head, change the plugs, time it. Everything was very simple and at 10 or 11 years old able to start doing that thing that's pretty cool. It got me interested in it. So I always was messing around with the Model As. I ended up getting another one and I've kept that, as a hobby. So that's kind of how it all got started. But I enjoyed doing that and when my boys were younger, we started collecting a couple of tractors – we're green tractor people – we have couple John Deere. I think that's probably my thing away from music. You know everyone needs something to just to be a little different."

More musicHetrick will be retiring at the end of the current school year but thinks he may start performing more. "I've had a couple of gigs recently. I did a new band that has just been around a year. It's called a tribute band... so they're doing all the Chicago tunes. I played in Austintown (Ohio) last weekend for our gig."

This is not his first time going on the road, despite not going with the Glenn Miller Band. As a professional musician, he has performed with groups such as Manhattan Transfer, The Temptations, Tommy & Jimmy Dorsey Bands, Rosemary Clooney, Roger Williams and even the Lawrence Welk Orchestra.

"In 1990, I did a two week tour with the Lawrence Welk band. It was called the Stars of the Lawrence Welk show," he says, because by that time, Lawrence himself was no longer performing. "So I had never performed with him but (with) his second in command Myron Floren, the accordion player out of North Dakota, who was the leader. I did a two week tour" along with Joe Feeney and Jim Roberts, tenor singer; Jo Ann Castle, piano player; Ralna English, singer; Bobby Burgess and Barbara Boylan, dancers; Arthur Duncan, dancer; and Jack Imel, singer, dancer and xylophone player.

"Barney Liddell was one of the trombone players in the original band (on the Lawrence Welk Show); he was like the only one that was with the band. The rest were musicians from the Pittsburgh and Cleveland area," Hetrick said. "It was just a lot of fun to do that. They're very professional those musicians and I heard a lot of the stories of how they recorded and everything and the recordings that you saw on TV. Those weren't dubbed, I mean they did it that well on the first take. A lot of times they would just go and do it and it just happened. They were good, very talented people, so it just an honor for me to get to play with them."

Even after retirement he may still play in the orchestra at the high school musicals as he and his wife have done every time they could. He says he knew of Brookville's musical talent even when teaching at Redbank Valley. "I taught private lessons and even my students from Brookville would say, 'we're going to go to the Brookville musical, you know their music program is really good.' So I learned a long time ago that Brookville has a good music program and that's one of the reasons I felt comfortable coming here too because I know new music was always important to Brookville clear back to Dick Reed, Mr. Tattersall, they always had a good program and I always felt proud of that fact and it caused me to want to always work hard to to continue that tradition because we are so proud of our music program here; we've always had a good program and we want to keep that going. And we have all the young, really, really awesome young teachers now you know. So, I guess if anything I feel comfortable, leaving and knowing that it's in good hands – Mr. (Kyle) Grabigel and Mrs. (Laura) Grabigel and our new orchestra person, Mr. Mathew King, and Miss (Anna) Osiol, the high school choir director."

For the time being though, his thoughts are on preparing his students for the fifth and sixth grades spring concert, Thursday, April 16, at 7 p.m. in the high school auditorium.

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