TULSA, Okla. — Henryetta Public Schools was awarded $175,000 from the proceeds generated at Troy Aikman’s Highway to Henryetta music festival back in June.
Educators in the district were asked to write grants to receive some of the funding. The school district’s band director Alan Montgomery was awarded almost $6,500 of that money to treat his students to some much-needed new equipment. Montgomery says students are thrilled.
“It feels great to be recognized by someone with that amount of fame that everybody knows. To be from Henryetta and come back and give back to his community that he grew up in. It just overall feels great,” said Lucas Thompson a senior at Henryetta High School.
Thompson has been in the Henryetta band for 5 years. He plays the trumpet. He says in all that time he’s been with the band, they’ve never received this much new equipment.
“We don’t get much funding but we just make with what we got,” he said. “So when we heard about this we were all excited.”
With the money, Montgomery purchased new flutes, new clarinets, clarinet mouthpieces, new music stands, and a repair kit for the equipment.
“You know having these instruments it’s going to make the students that get these instruments to use, it’s going to make them play better. It’s going to make them sound better which will make the band overall sound better because the instruments that they have now are not great,” Montgomery said.
Thompson says he feels it will even motivate his classmates.
For him, even though it’s small, he says he’s excited to get valve oil as it’s greatly needed. He explains if the trumpet valves won’t move they can’t play.
“It’s probably the most needed. We have all the melodies which are the recognizable parts of the music so I feel like we get relied on quite a lot,” Thompson said. “So we have to step up so people can recognize the song.”
Montgomery says this is a huge shot in the arm for morale and confidence and he’s excited to see the program improve with the new equipment.
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