Remembering Jerry Bobo Frank Buck, Ed.D.


Fayette Band elected to play some of the most challenging music of any band in the state. Through the years, they impressed judging panels with such “warhorses” as “March Slave,” “Light Cavalry Overture,” “Finale from Symphony #4” (Tschaikovsky), “Morning Noon and Night in Vienna,” “The Universal Judgement,” “The Barber of Seville,” “La Forza Del Destino,” “Rienzi,” “The Marriage of Figaro,” and “The Poet and the Peasant.”


What made the band program at Fayette so good for so long?


Setting Expectations A Fayette rehearsal always started on time. Regardless of the demands for his attention, nothing stopped Jerry Bobo from stepping on the podium at precisely the right moment. He was ready and insisted everyone else was as well.


Hearing the Fayette County High School Band at State Competition was an experience hard to forget. Fayette is not a large town. But you’d never know it from watching that band take the stage. Often, the stage was barely large enough to hold everyone.


Who could forget the iconic smile on the face of its leader, Jerry Bobo? Was that smile a sign of confidence that he knew the band was well- prepared? Or maybe it signified the love he had for every young person as they filed onto that stage. Maybe it was some of both.


Jerry Bobo was a product of Fayette. After graduating from Fayette County High, he attended the University of Alabama. His goal? To be a band director. That goal was realized sooner than expected. In 1956, two years into his collegiate career, the job at Fayette came open. Jerry Bobo was hired. It would be the only band job he would ever hold.


The Fayette program numbered 54 at that time. For the next two years, Mr. Bobo drove back and forth from Fayette to Tuscaloosa to finish his degree. Over the years, the program grew to well over 400 students. For most of his 35 years on the podium, Jerry Bobo taught the entire program by himself. During his tenure, the Fayette County High School Band earned a “Superior” rating at State Competition a remarkable 31 times.


The school enrollment placed the band in “Class B.” However, the 28


Though the groups were large, discipline was never a problem. April Renfroe Tolbert, a stellar clarinetist who became an outstanding band director herself, adopted many of the techniques she learned from her teacher. She related that Mr. Bobo kept you so busy, you had no time for mischief. In the early grades, if he asked the


trumpets to play “line 10,” everyone else in the band had their instruments to their faces fingering line 10 as well.


The Fayette program was large, but nobody could hide. Jerry Bobo called on students at random to play their parts in front of everyone. It was a practice that started in 6th


grade beginning band and continued


through high school. He would also play the “chair game” without warning. If he picked your section, you could gain or lose several chairs by how well you played your assignment.


The message was clear: Everyone was important. Everyone had a responsibility. Everyone was capable. Mr. Bobo had a collection of sayings. James Hall, who worked with Mr. Bobo during the last 10 years of his career, recounted one of his favorites: “Every tub needs to sit on its own bottom.”


Another Jerry Bobo saying was, “Practicing is like putting money in the bank.” Leaving your instrument in the band room overnight was unheard-of. If you did leave your instrument, you wouldn’t find it the next day in the spot you left it. You had to go and ask Mr. Bobo for it. It’s something that seldom happened with a student more than once.


Living up to the expectations of the “leader of the band” had nothing to do with fear. It had everything to do with not wanting to disappoint


August/September 2019


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