Texas Bandmasters Association
Bandmasters Review • April 2016
2
Bob Parsons retired in 2002 after a
thirty-five year career as a Texas band
director. He served most recently as
the head director at West Ridge Middle
School in the Eanes ISD in Austin. His
career spans three decades of active
involvement in music education in
Texas, having taught in widely different
types of schools: rural schools both
small and large—New Diana and
Jacksonville in East Texas, an urban
private school—Bishop Dunne High
School in Dallas. Bob was an assistant
director at Richardson High School
and a middle school director at West
Ridge Middle School in the Eanes ISD
in Austin.
After a year’s study in linguistics in
Germany, Bob accepted a last-minute
appointment as director at the Class A
New Diana High School in 1967. Bob
had majored in history and German at
the University of Texas and is grateful
for the help he received from local
directors and friends at Tatum Music
Company to help him get started as a
band director. His band made their first
Sweepstakes in 1970.
He accepted an invitation to start a
band at Bishop Dunne High School,
where the band was a consistent
First Division performer in the Texas
Catholic Interscholastic League. Bishop
Dunne players soon took a number
of places in TMEA region bands and
eventually the Texas All-State Bands
and Orchestra. In 1977 the band
won the National Tape Contest of
the National Catholic Bandmasters
Association. In November of 2012 the
school board named the renovated
band hall after him.
Bob broadened his experience in
a larger program in a move to the
Richardson district as Scott Taylor’s
assistant in 1978, and then back to East
Texas to follow Val Rose in Jacksonville
in 1979. In Jacksonville Mr. Parsons’
high school band was a state Honor
Band finalist three times, and in 1986,
his Jacksonville Band performed as the
Texas Honor Band in Class AAAA at the
annual convention of the Texas Music
Educators Association. During his
tenure the band was also selected as the
outstanding band in its class at several
music festivals in Florida, Georgia, and
Tennessee, as well as Texas.
The West Ridge Middle School
Symphonic Band fared extremely
well in concert band events, placing
in the top ten in three consecutive
appearances in the Texas Honor
Band competition. The West Ridge
SymphonicBandearnednumerousFirst
Divisions in Texas’ UIL competition,
and his bands were named best-in-
class at numerous spring festivals.
Mr. Parsons is active as a clinician
and adjudicator and has conducted
numerous region bands and honor
groups. He has served in several offices
of TMEA and has also served on special
committees of the UIL. In May of 1991
he was named to the Legion of Honor
by the John Philip Sousa Foundation.
He is a member of Phi Beta Mu and is
a charter member of the Texas Music
Adjudicators Association. In 1993
he was elected to the TBA Board of
Directors and served as President of
the association in 1998.
At the 2005 meeting of the TBA
in San Antonio, he received the
Meritorious Achievement Award, and
in 2006 he was elected a member of
the American Bandmasters Association.
In 2012 he was inducted into the Texas
Bandmasters Hall of Fame.
Bob is so grateful to the many, many
friends, colleagues, and mentors who
have helped him enjoy a wonderful
career and life as a Texas band director.
He is also proud of the many students
who have maintained a love and interest
in music as performers, teachers, and
listeners.
Since his retirement in 2002 he
has maintained an active schedule of
clinics and judging in the spring and
has taught private lessons in middle
schools near his home. His wife Nell,
known as
Funny
to family and friends,
has remained a loving and loyal
supporter for nearly fifty years. They
are very proud of their three children
—Emily, Susan and her fiancé Bryce
Kearney, and John and daughter-in-
law Brigette, all of whom are enjoying
successful career paths of their own.
TBA Bandmaster of the Year 2016
Bob Parsons
