A love of music was instilled in me from the time I was little. My dad and his brothers and sisters would get together and they'd play their guitars and the piano and we'd all sing. When I was in the 4th grade my mom decided to enroll me in
piano lessons. 3 months later she unenrolled me because she hated fighting with me to practice. One year later in the 5th grade, I took the plunge and decided to play the drums. I'll let you read in a different section why I chose the drums.
I had fun being a part of music. I got to be in the Bartlett Junior High Band and got my first taste of music service in the 8th grade when I was the Uniform Manager (I was a Tau Beta in training and didn't even know it yet). When I was in high school my dreams came true when I made it to the Monache Band. We had to audition for band as freshmen and I didn't make it my freshman year. Mr. Anderson my director said he could put me in then but I'd be on cymbals all the way through high school. So I chose to take the percussion class to improve my rudiments. I re-auditioned in February of my freshman year and ended up making it for the fall. I was sooooo excited.

My band service continued when I was the music librarian for Mr. Anderson my sophomore year. What is it about band directors not being organized? My friend Dennis Austin and I had quite the task of organizing everything. I enjoyed being part of the percussion section and the antics we shared (Ben TV, Kevin's endless lectures on how we had to beat Tulare Union, Eddie marching us around campus at night practices over and over while we prepared for marching percussion competition, and Andy taping snare drummers hands to their sticks so their pinkies wouldn't stick out). Ironically, I ended up playing cymbals all the way through high school. Eddie (my percussion instructor my senior year of high school) wanted me to switch to bass drum that year but it was too late - I had fallen in love with the cymbals. In addition to band in high school, I was a part of the drama club, the Alive In Him club (a Christian club that met every Wednesday at lunch), I was a stat for the girls jv and varsity basketball teams, I was a stat for the girls softball team, and I was involved with my youth group at the Porterville Church of the Nazarene. My youth pastor, Larry Underwood, was such an awesome man of God and he had such an impact on the lives of all of us in the youth group. He had such a heart for us and it showed in everything he did. We had the craziest times. Air band competition at our lock ins, playing air raid and assasin at winter retreat, mission impossible at an orange grove between Porterville and Strathmore, youth choir practice every Sunday afternoon, and the stupidest games I have played in my life (the flowerpot game - riiight).

Page 3 of About Me