OHS Journalism
by Lillie Weiser
This past week, the auditory arts program at Onaga had a few major events take place. First and foremost, a new K-12 music teacher was hired. Her name is Emma Caldwell; she recently graduated from the University of Kansas with a bachelor’s in music education. This specific degree certified her to teach K-12 band, orchestra, choir, and general music. She says that she is most excited to “see how all of the moving parts of the different ensembles end up coming together for a future performance; essentially the growth.” She has been busy since the first day and hasn’t had much time to meet many of the staff members, but she stated: “I really like working with Mrs. Figge-Rahjes. I met her on the first snow-day and she bought me some borders for my bulletin board.”
With entering into a school district during the middle of the year, there were bound to be challenges. Ms. Caldwell is happily taking them in stride. “The schedule is my biggest worry this semester,” Emma stated. The middle school and high school students have opposing schedules and along with being a grade school teacher, there was much to decipher and work around in attempts to accommodate everyone. One student, in particular, is taking an independent study with Ms. Caldwell, but before the semester started, she was enrolled into the Washburn University Honor Band.
Lillie Weiser was the first student to attend an honor band in several years. “It was definitely a learning curve for me as I have never played in a band that size before and the difficulty of the songs was definitely up there, but I thoroughly enjoyed the people I met and the experience as a whole.” Ms. Caldwell watched the concert at the end of the day and transported Lillie home, regarding which she stated: “I really enjoyed the concert. I haven’t listened to an honor band in a while and it was refreshing to see what a conductor and band could accomplish in one day. It is cool to see kids with passion and a drive to do things well.”
It will be intriguing to see what the kids and the band/choir department can accomplish in the months to come, especially with all of the progress and attempts at improvement that have been made in just the last few weeks.