"A juggernaut that couldn't be stopped," is how Withrow High School alum Zachery Riggins described the school's fine arts program when he graduated in 1972. In his day, Riggins says Withrow had hundreds of students involved in theater, band, choir, or orchestra, and the school frequently put on performances and showcases of all kinds.
"Music was always a part of Withrow," he said, "from the 1930s to probably the early 1980s."
When Riggins returned to his alma mater in the 2010s, the fine arts department couldn't have been further away from the one he left behind.
"This cannot be in my high school. There was nothing here," Riggins recalled. "When I got back there was literally one light on the stage that worked."
So he got to work. He called on Withrow alumni and his connections in the performing arts community to donate equipment and whatever else they could to bring the program back to life. Riggins' work paid off. In 2019, the school was doing shows again for the first time in decades. Then came the COVID-19 pandemic.
Some of Withrow's music programs went remote in 2020, while others were paused altogether. When students returned to the building, getting them back into the arts wasn't as easy as the school's fine arts coordinator would have hoped.
"Once the students returned, it was a matter of like, 'Remember, we still have a choir; remember we have a band,' " Riggins told students.
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Marching on
The dip in participation was prevalent in many areas throughout the school's arts department and Withrow wasn't unique. Bob Morrison is with the National Arts Education Data Project. He says after the pandemic, fewer students nationwide participated in their school's art programs even though those programs were still available.
"Many students, when they came back, for whatever reason lost interest or went in another direction," Morrison said.
After Withrow's band director left mid-way through last school year, the school's music program needed a spark. That spark came in the form of the school's newly hired choir director, Zak Sutton.
"I moved up from Georgia two years ago and I was hired to teach 7th grade general music and to start a choir. That was my job, to start a choir," Sutton said.
Now on top of forming the choir, Sutton was charged with conducting the concert band and leading the marching band, which had seen its numbers dwindle over the years.
The circumstances seemed difficult, but Withrow's teachers dug in and continued to recruit more students into music and the performing arts.
For Sutton, creating a fun and welcoming environment for students is critical to the marching band's success, and band members are encouraged to invite their classmates to join.
"Get your best friends, bring them to band," Sutton tells his students. "When I was growing up, all of my best friends were band kids. That's how that works, right? Same thing with choir. That's what happens. They get to build memories with friends while also learning and it's a place they want to be."
So far, the strategy is working. The band has grown to 20 strong, and Sutton says after Withrow's first home football game this season, even more students expressed interest in joining.
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Reaching crescendo
Still, while students are attracted to the arts, keeping their interest remains a challenge no matter the art form.
Withrow's longtime orchestra teacher John Beasley says while the pandemic presented some challenges, the changing landscape of education has become an even bigger hurdle. He says as schools shift their focus to areas like business and technology, students who were once involved in the arts are leaving it behind.
"Students have to take certain business courses. That crowds their schedule, and so music has to go at some point. By their senior year, it's really an issue to try to get everything in." Beasley told WVXU.
Despite the challenge, Beasley hopes attitudes toward pursuing music will change at Withrow. He says students need to see others at the school succeed by earning scholarships to study music at the college level, which could inspire younger students to do the same. In recent years, that hasn't happened at Withrow.
"They don't see the end product just yet," he said.
Senior violinist Jenaya Hills wants to be one of the inspiring students. She discovered the violin as a sophomore and only by chance.
"I didn't actually know there was an orchestra class until I was just walking through the hallways and I just stopped by and went inside. So, I asked my counselor if I could get switched to [Beasley's] class, and it just kind of happened."
She hopes to study musical performance in college next year, so she can set an example for the school's younger musicians, like sophomore cellist Javiana Johnson-Overstreet, who has always had a passion for music.
"It's a different experience, just like coming into music and seeing how it really is, because music is deeper than what you really think," Johnson-Overstreet said.
While there's still plenty of work to do, Withrow's teachers are pleased by the direction the school's arts program is going. The school now has a piano teacher, the theater program put on its first full-length musical in years last fall, and music from all directions is once again flowing through the halls of Withrow.
