End of an Era

Yesterday, my dear friend Jeff Edom told me he is stepping down as Associate Director of Bands at Sac State to take the band director job at Laguna Creek HS. Mostly, besides actually getting paid more money (which HS should never be higher than a university job), he will get to spend four years with his girls who enter Laguna Creek next month.

Jeff took this job in August 1996 after Jack Foote pretty much decimated the band. He convinced 37 people to be in the band that year and grew it into a 125-piece dynamic ensemble. What was once a school with no spirit, people started to care for the band again at Sacramento State.

He re-wrote Fight, Hornet, Fight to pretty much its intended original score when Don McDonald penned it in 1952. He took the band to places never before in its history: Portland, Spokane, Salt Lake City. The shows he wrote were outstanding to play: challenging, yet tunes that most people in Hornet Stadium would know or at least appreciate.

I'll never forget the Gladiator show in 2001. I had never seen our fans give a standing 'O for the band until that night against ucdavis-sucks! Even the aggie band announcer said that was the best show he had ever seen in 30 years of the Causeway Classic.

Jeff is like the older brother I never had. He is such a good friend that this one is going to be hard. I am happy for him because he will get to spend more time with his girls before they go off to school (probably Oregon). I am sad because we will lose the director who really saved the Sacramento State Marching Band.

The uncertainty of now getting a new director in 7 weeks before camp starts is going to be tough. As a member of the staff and announcer for the band, I, along with the rest of the staff will have to work together to help the new director feel not only welcome, but get him/her up to speed.

Jeff, thank you for all you have done in service to my Alma Mater. Words cannot express what you have done in my life and the lives of all of those in the Sac State Band for the past 11 years. You will always now be an alum of the Sacramento State Marching Band. You earned it. Thank you for saving "The Spirit of Sacramentoooooooooooooooooo..............."