Published February 26, 2008

For Fort Payne High School band director Becky Rodgers, it’s not easy to walk away from music. After 28 years of teaching boy and girls to play music and 14 of them at Fort Payne, Rodgers is retiring May 23.

“The greatest joy I have every day is stepping in front of my students,” Rodgers said. “It’s the first thing I think of when I wake up in the morning, and one of the last things I think about before I go to sleep. I am constantly amazed at the level at which high school students can perform beautiful music.”

Rodgers said her time in Fort Payne has been an intensely rewarding experience and the source of many memories. She said taking the band to London in 2001, the Fiesta Bowl in Phoenix and the many performances closer to home were among her fondest memories.

“I’ll be beginning a new phase in my life,” Rodgers said. “I hope to continue teaching at a different level, possibly on the middle school or college level.”

Rodgers said she was moving to North Dakota, but teaching music and her passion for it would go with her.

“I told the kids I was retiring, and that I wanted to savor every moment we’re together until the end of the school year,” Rodgers said. “I want to bottle it up inside me and take it with me when I go.”

Rodgers said the Fort Payne band has a motto: “Together, we can do anything.”

“We’ve really proven that in my time here,” Rodgers said.

In addition to teaching high school and middle school band, Rodgers has also served as the president of the Alabama Music Educators Association and president-elect of the Alabama Bandmasters Association.

She credits her students, parents and other educators with the band’s success. And Rodgers said her students have achieved amazing things.

“This fall, during practice, the band was in a big circle, and I was in the center sitting on the ground listening,” Rodgers said. “For that instance, everything came together. The sound was perfect, every note. It so moved me that I started to cry. Striving for that every day, week after week has been a joy and a blessing.”

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All I can say is wow I never thought it would happen.