In the brass section, left to right, Nathan Roy, Jamison Soupir, Jacob Lallatin, Dustin Lane, Audrey Lallatin and Gabe McKern play music they will take to state competition on May 9. The Eagle/Angel Carpenter

JOHN DAY – Mary Ann Vidourek hops to a busy beat, yet manages to keep time, as she leads her Mt. Vernon Middle School and Grant Union High School band and choir students to new heights.

As students choose to stick with the music program, she opens avenues for them to improve their skills.

Earlier this year, two of Vidourek’s students, senior Zach DeRosier and freshman Morgan Cleaver, were chosen to participate in the Oregon Music Educators Association’s All State Honor Choir. They were chosen by judges from a pool of taped auditions to take part in the Eugene event.

Vidourek is the small schools representative for the association.

In early March, Vidourek jumped behind the wheel of one of the smaller school buses – she’s licensed to drive them for the district – and took nine of her students to the Northwest Percussion Project in Pullman, Wash. They received hands-on instruction from university professors of percussion in a variety of workshops at Pullman High School.

The journey was long and the event lasted all day, however, “It was worth the time and effort to get those kids there,” Vidourek said.

Over spring break she took an even longer trip with her high school music students to Disneyland to perform.

“Their performances were very good,” she recalled. “What a great bunch of kids went on that trip. I don’t know that everyone realizes how well behaved our music students are off campus.”

This month her middle-school students competed in the District 6 Middle School Large Group Contest. The students did well, receiving a “one” rating.

On April 25, she takes another group of students to the Middle School Tri-County Band Festival in Irrigon.

This year, Vidourek will be losing eight band students and 10 choir students when they graduate.

She recalls that these seniors were her first sixth-grade music students; she started teaching locally in 2000, taking over where Ed Carwithen left off. She remembered T-shirts the band wore which said, “The Band of the New Millennium.”

“They were so proud of that,” she said.

Some of Vidourek’s students are following her footsteps, pursuing careers in music.

To name a few, Kelli Stowers received a music degree and has been hired as a music educator at an elementary school in Springville, Utah; Levana Gilmore is currently teaching middle school and high school band and choir in Little Rock, AK; Amanda Myers and Mary Kienzle are both majoring in music.

May 22 will be the final band concert, and May 23 the final choir concert, given by sixth through 12th grades, plus a presentation by the Humbolt Elementary School’s Little Singers. The grand finale at each concert includes a collaboration piece which will include all the grades.

Vidourek said this gives the younger students a chance to hear what they can become.

She remembers a sixth-grade saxophone student who once said he “didn’t know it would be possible to sound like that” after performing with the older students.

In the next month or so fifth-graders will bring a letter home to their parents inviting them to sign up for choir or an instrument in band for sixth grade.

For those already involved, Vidourek said, “I hope parents will encourage students to continue to develop their expertise with their instrument or voice.”

She said band and choir are not just classes students go to, but something they take ownership in and belong to.