The Music Man...

Like many of you I attended the memorial service for Dennis Koch last Saturday. Dennis was the long time music teacher at Ritzville High School. Mr. Koch graduated from RHS in 1957 and returned to his hometown my junior year in the fall of 1968.

I only had one class from Mr. Koch and it wasn’t music related. I had long since given up playing the clarinet in hopes of becoming the next Pete Fountain. After my sophomore year I also decided that singing in the choir was not for me. Oh, I loved music but I spent my time listening to the music on KJRB and singing along with the rock bands and butchering the lyrics like most 16 year olds often do.

When I made my mind up that enough was enough you couldn’t get me to try the choir experience again. My time as a choirboy was over. Looking back on it now, I probably should have spent some time with Mr. Koch to see if singing would be enjoyable again.

Playing on the football team I would get excited about the game with the famous pep assemblies. Mr. Koch’s band would always play the school fight songs, yes there were two, when I was in school and ‘Mr. Touchdown’ an old football song that his band brought to life. If you weren’t ready to play football after one of these assemblies there was a good chance you needed to have your pulse taken.

When basketball season rolled around the school fight song, the one the school uses today, would start out as soon as we hit the floor for warm ups. I would always get goose bumps hearing this song and listen to the cheers from our fans.

Mr. Koch’s band played a lot of songs when we warmed up and one of the songs we liked was ‘Rock Around the Clock.’ I remember one particular game when Gary Anderson said, “I love this song!” Now Gary wasn’t talking about the Bill Hailey and the Comets version, he was talking about the RHS band version. I was always happy to hear this song being played because I knew Gary would be ready to play.

In the fall of 1969 as a senior we had high expectations for football and basketball. I would have to say we reached many of those goals in football. At every home game you could hear the band and the two drummers pounding out the sounds. The Star Spangled Banner was always a special moment at home because the receiving team was on the field as the song was being played and the band never missed a note and at the end of the song when you said to yourself, ‘…home of the brave’ it was time to hit somebody!

After a very successful football season it was time for basketball and the prospects for a hopeful trip to state. There were a lot of ups and downs this particular season but when we made the playoffs we would be on the road. The interesting thing was that our fans beat us to the court we were going to play at. And there was the band cranking out the sounds with Mr. Koch front and center with a trumpet leading his troops.

I can’t be positive but I would hazard a guess that Mr. Koch and band probably accounted for anywhere from 5-10 points and we needed every single one.

I’ve told this story a bunch of times and it was part of a column I wrote about eight years ago.

When we made it to state we played at 1:00 in the Wednesday afternoon session and the band was playing when we hit the Spokane Coliseum floor. What an unbelievable experience.

When Mr. Koch realized that Kittitas and Oakville had not brought a band for the next game he asked the Coliseum officials if the RHS band could continue to play. And play they did.

The band also played for the first half of the 4 p.m. game. It was one of the greatest displays of sportsmanship that has ever been displayed at the tournament yet it probably wasn’t presented that way.

I look back on that wonderful time and wonder if we made it to state because we were good enough or if Mr. Koch and his musicians willed us to victory so that the whole state could see how great this band really was. I hope it was a whole bunch of both.