Young man excited over opportunity For Clark Keele, Panther Band director was a dream
Clark Keele, the newly hired band director for Porterville High School, said he is a little overwhelmed, but “very, very excited.”
Porterville Unified School District Superintendent Ken Gibbs announced Tuesday Keele was officially hired as the next Panther Band director to replace Jim Kusserow.
“It has always been a secret dream of mine to be band director here,” said Keele via phone on Wednesday. He was with his wife visiting her family in the San Diego area. “It’s always been in the back of my head,” he added.
After an extensive search which took nearly nine months, Keele was offered the position. He has another semester to complete at Brigham Young University where he will earn his Bachelor of Arts in Music in December. He said they will then pack up and move to Porterville where he will start work Jan. 1, 2018.
In the meantime, Kusserow, who led the Panther band for 27 years, has agreed to remain on through the fall semester and then mentor Keele in the spring semester.
With no time to student teach, Keele said he was entering the Impact Program which will be a two-year teaching credentialing program while he teaches.
Didn’t At First Apply Keele said he did not apply when the position first came open last year when Kusserow announced his intentions to retire. “I knew I wanted the position, but I was hesitant to apply because I wasn’t going to graduate until December. I thought, ‘Darn it, I missed it by six months,’” he said.
However, as the district continued to search, and with several people, including his parents, urging him to apply, he did. He got an immediate call from the district.
Gibbs said Kusserow, PHS Principal Jose Valdez and a committee of community members, were all in agreement that Keele would be a good fit. Keele, who served as Panther Band drum major for two years, said he first fell in love with the band after seeing it march in the Veterans Day parade not long after his parents move to Porterville when he was in the fourth grade.
“It has always been a secret dream of mine to be band director here.”
“I thought it was the coolest,” he said.
He will now oversee a music program with about 300 students, 200 of those involved in the band.
After graduating high school in 2009, he went to BYU for two years before taking time off for a two-year mission. He said he then returned to BYU, met his wife and married, and continued his education.
He now has two young children — a daughter, 3, and a son, 7-months.
He is looking forward to working with Kusserow.
“Jim has been very gracious to me. He’s been very helpful,” he said.
While he is excited to continue the strong traditions of the Panther Band, he also hopes to bring a few new ideas, “things I’ve learned at school.”
“In addition to helping kids, showing them opportunities and represent the community,” he also hopes to bring back and showcase many of the great musicians who have come out of Porterville, some of them classmates from high school.
“There’s a lot of wonderful musicians who came out of Porterville,” he said, naming a few.
He said his parents — Jeff and Elizabeth Keele — are excited for him and for also getting “grand babies” closer to them. His wife, who has a degree from Byu-idaho in piano, is also very excited. He called her one of the best piano accompanist he has heard.
“She’s excited to contribute to the community as well,” he said.