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In 2013, Dr. Johnny Long celebrates 65 years as a band director in the State of Alabama. As Trojan fans know, Dr. Long brought “The Sound of the South” band into the national spotlight during his tenure as band director from 1965-1997. When he arrived on campus, he had 13 members in the band. When he retired, the band had over 300 members.


Along the way, Long served TROY as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and Special Assistant to the Chancellor under Dr. Ralph Adams. He also was instrumental in bringing the National Band Association Hall of Fame of Distinguished Band Conductors to TROY, and is one of the few living inductees in that illustrious Hall.


Into his seventh decade of teaching, he continues to receive new honors. In 2011, he was the subject of a profile on CBS Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood and The CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley. This led to his being chosen for the Stephen Sondheim Prize at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and recognition from President Barack Obama.


Two buildings on the TROY campus bear his name, and the School of Music is named for him. He has received just about every accolade a band director could ever hope for.


And yet, one of Dr. Long’s proudest accomplishments is the development of a special esprit de corps in the TROY band program that exists to this day: the Sound “family” has grown to extend far beyond any expectations.


Several band members came with Dr. Long from Robert E. Lee High School in Montgomery. Long founded the Lee Band and brought it to regional and national acclaim during its first ten years.


Rennie Mills, a member of the first Long- era Sound of the South, remembers an early meeting with The Man. “I first encountered [Dr. Long] in 1959. I thought he was a madman. In 1962, I joined the Lee Band and realized he was teaching life lessons.”


Another band member that first year was 46


THE SOUND OF THE SOUTH: A family affair awesome experience.”


By Michael Bird


Linwood Erb, who changed his mind about attending another state college to go to TROY.


“My first impression was one of awe. When I started band in seventh grade, my goal was to be in the Lee Band.”


Mills says that Dr. Long held his students to a higher standard, particularly when it came to attending classes. He recalls some of the early rehearsals as “hard work, long hours. “The first year, we did the REX parade in New Orleans, Louisiana. We left at 4:00 on Monday afternoon, did the parade on Tuesday, left New Orleans at midnight, got back to Troy at 8:00 a.m., and he dared anybody to miss class!”


Scott Erb, currently a manager of web product development for Compass Bank, says that the family playing together was “awesome! That was the first and only time we all played together. I will always cherish that moment.” Tony Whetstone is another member of the Sound of the South family whose connections to the band extend across the years.


It didn’t start that way, as Whetstone had planned to attend Auburn University when he completed high school. However, a Friday night football game conversation with his former band director changed the direction of his life’s plans.


Linwood Erb, Staci Erb Oliver, Scott Erb, and Linda Erb at Troy University’s Homecoming, October 29, 1995.


Mr. Erb met his wife in the SOTS, and later, his children were also in the band. He recalls, “Troy University personally means everything to me. I met my future wife Linda while a member of the band. It also gave me the opportunity to make a living doing what I had always wanted to do in life, and that was being a band director … [my] proudest moment was when my wife Linda, my daughter Staci, my son Scott, and I marched at the same time during halftime at [the 1995] TROY Homecoming.”


Staci Erb Oliver, now a sixth grade teacher in Tallassee, remembers that experience, as well.


“When we started playing the ‘Fanfare’, chills went up my spine.


That was an


“Mr. Truman Welch, my high school band director, had just left Wetumpka High School for a position at TSU,” Whetstone recalls. “He said the band at Troy needed a bassoon player and thought scholarship money would be available. I spoke about [it] with my Mom, and she said it would be my decision. So, on a Monday morning in September 1972, my life took a new direction and I began my college days in Troy.”


Whetstone, like Erb, met his future wife marching in the Sound. “During band camp, I became interested in a pretty girl who was the French horn section leader,” Whetstone continues, “[and] I dated Rhonda Alford during that fall quarter. We were engaged in February and married in June.”


Rhonda and Tony Whetstone served Pike Liberal Arts School as band directors before taking on the band director jobs at Daleville High School, where they taught a shy blonde flute player named Amanda Bast – known today as Amanda Ford, band director at Charles Henderson Middle School in Troy, and wife of Ralph Ford, former Director of Bands at TROY University.


The next generation in the Whetstone family February/March 2013


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