Tri-Village Band Director Talks About Covid
By Brandy Lewis
Greenville- The 37th band spectacular ended with a collaboration of all the schools’ bands. Bands that participated this year were; Arcanum, Ansonia, Troy Christian, Mississinawa Valley, Tri-Village, Versailles and Greenville. This was Troy Christian’s first year at the band spectacular. Unfortunately, Tri-County North was unable to attend due to a Covid exposure. The Tri-Village band director, Mr. Derek Bialowas, spoke on Covid within the schools.
“Covid has definitely hurt the school in general and a lot of the extracurricular programs,” said Mr. Bialowas. “It’s been a little harder to recruit and keep students but it’s a challenge that’s definitely worth facing head on. We’ve still made a lot of progress with all the kids, we’ve still been able to put on really good performances and so I’m very very proud of our students and how they have risen to the occasion even with all the obstacles Covid has kind of challenged us with.” Bialowas went on to talk about how it has affected the schools in the area in general.
“Kind of everyone in the county has seen a little bit of decline in their numbers, nothing major but enough it is unfortunately noticeable.”
Mister B, as the kids call him, went on to say Tri-Village had lost eight to nine band members due to Covid. These kids had decided to go out and get jobs and instead of coming back to the band program had decided to stay with their jobs.
In his sixth year as band director at Tri-Village, his color guard instructor is his wife, Samantha (Sam) Bialowas for five of those years. His aspirations to be a band director started in high school.
“Band in high school was my safe space. It’s where I made all my friends and it was a family beyond my family” stated Bialowas. “I wanted to go into music education so I could provide that same opportunity for students in the future.”
The Tri-Village band members think he is a cool band director. With that being said, what are his thoughts on being a cool band director?
“I like to think so. I do my best to be as cool as I can and keep everything fair with the kids” admitted Bialowas.
The Patriots band has three songs all centering around one word.
“Tonight’s show actually started as a little bit of a not band show. It was initially to announce that my wife, Sam, and I were expecting our first child in October. So the show is titled `Hey Baby`. We used it to tell the kids that we were expecting and they liked it so much that we actually went ahead and turned it into our fair show.”
Tri-Village will perform this show one more time at their next away football game at Preble Shawnee. After that the Patriots will go to their more traditional football performance which will include music from Elton John.
Mr.Bialowas appreciates the support of the band and anyone’s support of any band or music program in the county, in the state and at any level.
“It’s a great opportunity for the kids and we love to see parents support, reader’s support, anybody’s support and anyone that is really willing to be a fan of the band program.”
All seven schools gathered in front of the grandstands, collaborating for the grand finale. The mass band played Livin` on a Prayer, High Hopes and ended with Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA. The last song brought the crowd to their feet with many standing toward the American flag with their hands over their hearts.
With 2020 not having a band spectacular, 2021 did not disappoint.
Photos: (Above) Tri-Village band shows off its dance moves, (Below) Mass bands brings crowd to its feet. CNO Photos by Brandy Lewis
