Connell will leave Marion to take over Goessel program
Sports reporter
Mike Connell has an obvious love for instrumental music.
It was apparent to his family when he was just two years old.
While playing in the yard at his hometown of Lyons, and to the despair of his worried mother, Mike disappeared.
He was found two blocks down the road, following the high school band.
"Band must have been born into my blood," he said.
Sixty-one years later, Connell finished his 25th and final school year as band director of Marion High School.
In the fall, Connell, who along with wife Cheryl will continue to live in Marion, will take over as band director at Goessel High School in western Marion County.
Although his time has ended in Marion, he is grateful for the opportunity that was given to him.
"I really feel this is where I was supposed to be all these years," Connell said, "because I didn't seek it out."
A calling
Connell hadn't applied for any other jobs after resigning from McPherson High School in January of 1982, and then one day he received a phone call.
On the other line was Marion-Florence USD 408 superintendent Darryl Woodson, offering him a job as band director of fifth through 12th grade students in the district.
Connell had already worked at Dwight, Cimarron, and McPherson districts doing the same thing, and wasn't sure if he wanted to continue in education.
After a lot of prayer, he knew going to Marion was the right choice.
"I asked God to open a door because I knew the one in McPherson was closing," he said, "and I didn't know what direction I was supposed to go."
During the conversation Woodson told Connell the school would have a new principal by the name of Bob Brock.
Connell had worked with Brock during his time at Cimarron and considered him a friend.
"Some people might call that coincidental," Connell said. "I prefer to think God Almighty has a hand in those things, and I believe he brought me here. I count these 25 years a blessing."
New role
After 41 years in education, Connell knows he has only about four or five years of teaching left, but will make the most of it at GHS.
He said the community is supportive of musical education, and everything it has to offer to the community. Without backing from the people, instrumental music wouldn't thrive he said.
Connell also said music has been successful at the Goessel school district because of its retiring band director, Bud Meisel.
"Bud is my very best friend and I hold him to the highest esteem," Connell said. "He is a marvelous musician and wonderful teacher."
Meisel was named 2005 Music Educator of the Year in the state of Kansas.
He was nominated by Connell.
"Following Bud is not going to be easy," Connell said. "But at the same time I know the community support and expectations, though they be high, are very good."
Connell said he is looking forward to the new job because he will have more one-on-one time and private lessons with students due to the smaller class sizes.
However, he knows it will be tough leaving his former students.
"I am looking forward to new challenges and getting started with a new situation," he said, "at the same time, [I'm] leaving behind very special people.
"I feel very close to those kids, it's hard to see them graduate each year. It kind of feels like a family."
Connell didn't want to elaborate on what factors led to his decision to move on, but wanted to make one thing clear:
"I have wonderful students, and I love them dearly," he said. "I will miss them a lot, and those students have nothing to do with my reason for leaving."
'Rock on"
Connell left education completely in 1968 to join a rock band, "The Reason Why."
After teaching, coaching, and sponsoring clubs at the Dwight school district in Morris County for three years, he wanted to try something different.
For a year his band played gigs across the state, and some even out of state.
Connell played trombone, trumpet, keyboard, sang backup, and even took care of all travel arrangements for the band.
In the back of his mind Connell knew he would return to teaching, and after the band broke up, that is what he did.
"I learned a lot with that experience about performing and what kind of expectations you have to have to be good," he said.
That experience, along with a summer in Chicago after college where he landed a lead role in a "West Side Story" play, helped him with his teaching today.
He and Cheryl were married after the band broke up, and they settled into Cimarron where Connell taught for six years.
McPherson was the next stop for the Lyons High School and Sterling College graduate, before taking the Marion-Florence job seven years later.
Now, the 63-year-old will be taking a new challenge.
"This will be my last job for sure," he said. "At least that's how I see it."
One last stop
Change happens no matter who you are, and Connell is figuring that out first hand.
On top of teaching a band class, directing a marching band, and teaching a recreational guitar class at MHS, Connell also has worked at Ampride two to three nights per week for nearly 14 years.
He directs two church choirs, (Marion Christian Church and Marion Presbyterian Church), and is president of both the South Central Kansas Music Educators Association, and Phi Theta Mu band directors fraternity.
Connell will no longer work at Ampride or MHS, but he and his wife will continue to live in Marion, because the community has given him great students, a great faculty and school board to work with, and the backing music education deserves.
They never had a thought of leaving.
"I knew if I was going to teach in a different district, I would be on the move," he said.
On the move he is to GHS where you won't see him leading a marching band on the football field as he did at MHS because the Bluebirds program doesn't have a marching band, but you can hear his music through the students just as you could at Marion.
"Music education is at the forefront of the development of other educational disciplines," he said. "It's important that communities grasp, and hang on to their music programs."
In other words, band was born into his blood.
