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| K.V. Bryant on field |
Kendall Vance Bryant
(Better known as K.V.)
An interesting person attending Western Kentucky College in the late 1930’s
was often seen traveling the hilly campus on roller skates to get to class
on time.
Sometimes he would be carrying a piccolo, playing it too. He had even stood
on his head during basketball games at the half time, playing his piccolo.
That was K.V. Bryant!
Before K.V. graduated from
Western in 1939, he was contacted by the Princeton,
Kentucky school system and
signed a contract to teach Instrumental Music and
11th grade English
there. In 1955 the Princeton Kiwanis Club presented him a
silver pitcher, a Citizenship
Award, in recognition of K.V.’s outstanding and
continuing service to his community. Murray State University awarded him
lifetime membership in the
music fraternity, Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia. When he
left Kentucky in 1958, he was
head of the Music Department and head of the
English Department.
K. V. had only two jobs after
college: Princeton, Kentucky for nineteen years,
and Mount Vernon, Indiana for
nineteen years. When he came to Mount Vernon in 1958, the new high school
was in the planning stage. For a time, band classes were
assigned to a barracks building located near the
school cafeteria where Florence Krietenstein
worked. How lucky he was! She kept
him well fed! In
two years the Music Department was moved
into the newly built high school where the numbers in
the band and the musicians expertise continued
to grow.
There were over 200 students
in the band when K.V.’s health brought his work to a halt in
1977. His career
goal was to create good citizens through music and
he did that. In 1996, the Music Alumni of Butler/Caldwell
Co. placed a memorial in a walkway by Butler High School where he had worked.
On it is his name and years
he served there. In 1998, Forty years after leaving Kentucky, K.V.
was posthumously inducted into Kentucky’s
Hall of Fame for Outstanding
Kentucky Band Directors, one of the first three to be installed.
K.V. was someone not
easy to forget…
-- Mrs. K.V., Marjorie Bryant
Dennis Noon remembers
Mr. Bryant ---
One hot summer afternoon
in 1958, I decided to go by the band room to see if anyone was there. The door
was
unlocked so I walked
in on the chance that I might meet the ‘new’ band director. He was
there, “Are you my
Drum Major”? I said ‘Yes’. That exchange
cemented my relationship with Mr. Bryant for the next two years
in the Mt. Vernon
High School Band. The harder I worked for him (and the band) the more responsibility
he
loaded on me. By my senior year, Mr. Bryant had me assigned to teach drums for one period of beginning
band each day as well
as driving the band equipment truck to distant events, even to the I.U. Band Day at
Bloomington. I saw in Mr. Bryant the drive and commitment to high achievement through great music. In
our senior year he
gave us Tschaikowsky’s “Finale to the 4th Symphony” and told us to listen as he played a
recording of his former
band in Princeton, KY playing the “Finale”. We were stunned! How did ‘they’ do
that? We found out shortly that it was through hard work, determination and faith…much of it on Mr.
Bryant’s part,
that we too were able to play the “Finale”…and play it well!
All through my years
as a school band director, I returned to talk to Mr. Bryant and ask him questions about
various aspects of
band directing, for as long as he was living. In all my questioning, I
was never able to
discern what his secret
to success was. I have since decided that he was simply a truly Great Man! To be
admired and remembered. To be imitated, but seldom matched.
And so tonight we imitate K.V. and relive
the music that he
loved and shared so abundantly. We honor his memory. We thank his wife Marjorie and
his daughters Marcia
and Bonnie for being here this evening to share the music and the memories with us.
Musically, Dennis Noon
Clifton
Merrick Remembers Mr. Bryant
A few weeks ago, Dennis Noon asked me to write a few paragraphs about the time that I spent
working
with Mr. Bryant. How do you put the events and experience of working with Mr. Bryant for 13 years in
a few paragraphs?
I first met Mr. Bryant when I applied for the Assistant Band Director job at Mt. Vernon
in the spring of 1965.
We apparently agreed on a lot of points and I was hired in the early summer. In the sixties, the MVHS Band
competed in the Indiana State Fair Marching Contest, held on the race track at the State
Fair grounds in
Indianapolis. We spent many hours in the
hot sun preparing for a three minute track show which was held
the first week in August.
After a few years, we came to the conclusion that we were never going to be able to compete
with Ben Davis
and the Anderson bands that had more than 200 members in their bands. We decided to use that time to
prepare for our home football games. In those
days, we performed a different show for every home game.
We went away for band camp in August to prepare for the season. The first year we went to Vincennes
University and stayed in the dorms, but we had to ride busses to the practice fields a
few miles away. One
morning while at camp, Mr. Bryant and I walked down the main hall in the boys’ dorm
and the carpet
‘squished’ under our feet. Later
in the day, we learned that the senior boys had lined up all of the freshmen
boys and pelted them with water balloons, and then made the young boys pick up all of
the remnants of the
balloons, so we would not discover the activity.
The older boys did not know that Mr. Bryant and I
had ‘spies’ in the trombone section.
The rest of the time we worked together, we went to camp at Merom, a church facility in
Merom, Indiana
on the Wabash river. The kids stayed in cabins
in groups of 10 or 12, and Mr. Bryant and I stayed in a room
in the main building at Merom. However, we
did have chaperones in each cabin. We had many wonderful
parents who would take a week of their vacation and spend it in beautiful downtown Merom
to help the
Wildcat Band. Some other Wildcat Band Alums,
like Ed Welte, would join us at each band camp to help out.
After camp, we came home with a couple of shows prepared, and ready for football games.
Mr. Bryant also had a pep band for all of the basketball games. It was an honor to be in the Wildcat Pep
Band, and the same kids were there for all
of the games. I usually took the Saturday Night games, especially
if the weather co-operated for Mr. Bryant to go attack some fish on a Saturday, with the
mealworms he grew
at his house.
In December for several years we had ‘Winter Wonderland.’ It was a fundraiser for the band held at the high
school on a Saturday before Christmas. It
featured many booths, lots of fun, and a short concert with the bands.
We also started working on solo and ensemble contest in December. It was his, and my belief, that all of the
band members should participate either with a solo or in an ensemble at contest. Of course, this meant a lot
of time on our parts to meet with the students on an individual basis, to prepare them
for contest. After state
solo & ensemble contest held in Indianapolis, we started working on concert band contest
materials for April
and our Spring Concert, usually held on the first Sunday in May.
On many occasions I went with Mr. Bryant to band activities in Kentucky. What an experience! He was then,
and is to this day, recognized as one of the pioneering band directors in Western Kentucky. Because of our
age difference, and my respect for him, I always addressed him as Mr. Bryant. Can you imagine my surprise,
that when we went to Kentucky, his former colleagues and friends addressed him
as “Teenie”? I never
heard anyone in Indiana use that name.
While our families did not socialize together, he and I spent many wonderful occasions
talking about bands,
music and the Chicago Cubs. Many of those
discussions took place when we traveled to band clinics, contests
where he judged and at the Mid-West Band Clinic in Chicago. Sometimes our discussions were accompanied
with an adult beverage or two.
I look back on our time together with fond memories.
--- Cliff
K.V. Remembered in Princeton, Kentucky
Even though K.V. Bryant left Princeton,
Ky. in 1958, his impact on students is still realized today. One of
his students at Caldwell County was
Patsy Franklin, a Princeton businesswoman who recalled that everyone
had a "scary respect" for him. "He respected the students, too. He made you sit up straight and be proud of
yourself. He was a strict disciplinarian,
but I thoroughly enjoyed him." "The first time I met him I was scared
half to death," she added, noting that
he was one of her English teachers in addition to being her Band
Director. "He made you believe that what he said, would happen. I don't know anyone who wasn't
afraid of him and who didn't respect him." He was her seventh grade English teacher,
and then
everyone had him as his or her English
teacher as a junior in high school. "One day he picked up
a big dictionary and threw it on my
desk. He told me, 'If you learn everything in it you're going to be
smarter than I am.'" She said that students had fun in band, but "nobody ever smarted back to him.
That was in the days when you could
still throw a baton at somebody." In Junior English, one
of the requirements to pass the course
was to recite "Thanatopsis." That was not an easy task
for some students, and Patsy recalled one particular student who the class expected to have a
difficult time. "Everyone was holding their breath for him, but he got out every word."
Chip Hutcheson, Publisher
Herald Leader, Princeton, KY
A Tribute
to K. V. Bryant
I came to Mt. Vernon to be K.V.’s
assistant right out of college, but I was about to begin learning what Grade
School and High School music was all
about. It was so many of the little things that he did that made a
tremendous impact. I would observe as K.V. addressed a multiplicity of musical issues and student issues,
and I was amazed by the amount of wisdom
that he brought to each situation. As the years progressed, there
is hardly a rehearsal or a performance
in which I don’t think about some technique or idea that I learned from
the Master in those early years. Many of us who were fortunate to work under K.V. inherited a great wealth of
musical understanding. To sum up, K.V. was inspiring and inspirational in every aspect of his teaching.
Lloyd G. Novak, Assistant Band Director to K.V. Bryant (1959 to 1961)
When K.V. came to
Mt. Vernon, I had only taught 1-½ years. K.V. gave me the help I needed and answered
my
numerous questions. He was, in fact, my mentor. In the fall
of 1960, the entire student body and staff – with
books in hand –
walked from the old high school to the new high school where we had a beautiful Band Suite
and Choral Suite
complete with practice rooms and offices. What an awesome experience and a memory
that
remains with me today. These new facilities were magnificent and made it even more convenient to pick K.V.’s
brain daily. He was an excellent musician, director and wonderful friend. He developed a great band that was
well disciplined,
and his students and co-workers had great respect for him.
We did joint Band and Choral programs –
one of which I remember lasted 2 ½ hours. Needless to say, I learned
from that experience to avoid selecting
every song we had rehearsed in choir. Two of many things I remember
that K.V. said to me – “Joanie,
with you everything is either black or white – you’ve got to learn to deal with the
grays”, which has been so helpful. Also he said, “I like and enjoy all music – not just certain kinds”. Both of
these statements, and many others, were
profound to me. My mother considered Marjorie (Mrs. K.V. Bryant)
one of her dearest friends. Our friendship and love for Marjorie and K.V. continues and our cherished
connections over these many years have truly
been a blessing.
Joanie Novak, Choral
Director at Mt. Vernon High School (1957 to 1962)
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