Tooting their own horns
Lower Columbia College band makes 25 years

When Dr. Gary Nyberg put the word out that a new band was forming at Lower Columbia College, Kelso resident Robert Mayclin, 43, was one of the handful of players who showed up. Back then, just out of high school, he was looking ahead.

“I spent too much time learning to play this instrument,” he said, to just let it sit and collect dust.” He joined the band and has been a steady member for 25 years Mayclin, 43, is the office manager for a local steel foundry. He plays clarinet.

Gary Nyberg was hired in 1979 to join the music faculty and organize a band. He arrived in Longview, fresh from graduate school at Brigham Young University, where he earned a doctoral degree in music performance. Previously, he taught band at a Green Bay, Wisconsin area high school, then at Wesleyan University and, later, at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln and Delta State University in Mississippi.

To some, Nyberg’s move from the midwest probably seemed like a downward career step. Before, he had always taught on campuses much larger than LCC’s. He would miss the academic faculty ranking system in place at most other colleges. But moving to the Northwest meant he’d be nearer his aging parents, then living in Idaho. And there were other benefits, too.

“I threw away my snow shovel,” he recalled, “and honed my steelheading skills.”

And stepped up to the task of creating a new band.

“The administration wanted a college-community enterprise here,” he recalled. And they knew forming a band from scratch would take some doing.

“Unlike a choir,” Nyberg explained, “band music has instrumentation which requires an array of instruments. A choir only needs four people.”

At the first rehearsal, only five players presented themselves.

“It’s a start,” Nyberg thought. “It takes time.”

“They didn’t know me, trust me, or respect me,” he recalled. “You have to earn that . . . and deserve it.”

“I’m not the best flute player,” said Cherise Reynolds, a 2003 Kelso High School graduate and current band member. “I just like being part of it. It keeps my sightreading up” A vocal music major at LCC, Reynolds aspires to be an opera singer, and has performed locally. “Opera is the most awesome, inspiring music there is,” she said, and combines the joys of orchestra with singing. “It’s great to be in a group with a bunch of experienced musicians.”

The band grew. Soon, Dick Kemp presented his entire music library, hauled from Castle Rock in the back of his pickup truck. He’d accumulated the music for his “soft lip band,” with a laid back style. “They horsed around, nobody practiced,” Nyberg recalled. “I didn’t want that.” But he gladly
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The LCC Band rehearses each Thursday at 7:00 p.m. at the college. Contact Dr. Gary Nyberg for more information. His telephone number is 360-442-2680. His email address is: gnyberg@lcc.ctc.edu

incorporated the soft lip band’s sheet music collection, much of it 19th century arrangements and considered it a special legacy from Dick Kemp, who died of cancer shortly thereafter.

By the end of the first year, there were 20 in the Band, which played at local Fourth of July 4 th events and performing on campus, with concerts held outdoors or in the old student center building. The group also took part in summer conducting workshops, serving as “guinea pigs,” for professional musicians perfecting their skills.

Today, players, students and the community reap the benefits of Nyberg’s efforts and experience. And there have been some very good years.

“It’s sort of like wine,” he said. “’92 was a good year . . . 2001 was a good year. March 2003 was a very good concert,” he recalled, with the band, “in tune, playing expressively, with almost no clinkers.”

The role has been challenging for Nyberg, who was used to working with students for four years in a row. Many of his students were music majors. “Music was the center of their universe.”

At LCC, however, the band is comprised of about half students, half community members – almost all of whom played in their high school bands. To join the LCC Band, players need skills equivalent to an advanced high school player, Nyberg said. Over the years, members have come from all over the region, including Longview, Kelso, Cathlamet, Clatskanie, St., Helens, Rainier, Winlock, Castle Rock, Kalama and Toledo.

“With only one rehearsal per week and as many busy, distracted people as we have,” he explained, “focus is a big issue. I wasn’t used to that.”

“I have to be very efficient in rehearsals, very encouraging. These are adults, not kids. I try to respect that.”

“They’re busy people and we want to make music together,” he said. “I enable that.”

In recent years, the band has played quarterly concerts at Longview’s Columbia Theatre., drawing enthusiastic response from the audiences, which are nearly as large as the theatre could hold.“It’s an ongoing problem for anybody running a program that takes people away from the TV set, Coors, Miller’s and Budweiser,” Nyberg joked. “People have to have the need for music in their lives.”

Nyberg said many students in LCC’s Music Appreciation classes are surprised when they attend their first non-pop concert.

“They like the immediacy,” of the music, he said. “They like to watch the players. They like to exercise their imaginations while the music plays, to see the players trying so hard.” And there is nothing else like live music.

“It’s different from recordings. It’s better.” On typical commercial recordings, he explained, there might be 20 takes to yield one cut. Live concerts are different.

“These are all the first take.”

And the band plays on from year to year.

In the band, Nyberg said, players get a qualified director, sheet music, a safe, warm place to rehearse, and a place for a concert.

LCC gets a group that strengthens its music program and benefits students.

“It’s a good thing.” Nyberg said. “The whole point of a community college is to be involved in the community. It’s part of the philosophy.”

Want to toot your own horn?
Band together with other instrumentalists.

Lower Columbia Trumpet Guild

Currently forming, under the direction of Regan Huffman, combining professionals, amateurs and students. The group is expected to contain, “quite a conglomeration of trumpets,” said organizer Dr. Richard Kirkpatrick.

First concert: Dec. 19 (tentative), likely at Longview Community Church.

For more information, contact Regan Huffman, (360) 578-1573) or Richard Kirkpatrick, (360) 636-2211 or Kirkpatrick@kalama.com

North Coast Symphonic Band

Rehearses 7 p.m., Monday at the Clatsop Community College Performing Arts Center. Astoria. First concert, Nov. 21, features music by John Philip Sousa and contemporaries. For more information, call Dennis Hale (503) 325-3891 or Janet Bowler (503) 325-2431.

LCC Symphonic Band

Rehearses each Thursday, 7 p.m. at Lower Columbia College, Longview. For more information, contact Dr. Gary Nyberg, (360) 442-2680 gnyberg@lcc.ctc.edu

Last month's Columbia River Reader cover story

“I was just a home boy wanting to beautify the Lake and I took the time to understand and to care.” - --Tag Richards

At first, all he wanted was to beautify his hometown. Before long, however, Longview sculptor Tag Richards was immersed in a project that sparked what he calls his, “cultural awakening.” For the last seven years, he’s dedicated his life to honoring Sacajawea by creating a sculpture to grace the banks of the lake named after her.

Richards, 48, said he hopes to, in a small way, “right an old wrong,” and fulfill Captain William Clark’s wish that more could be done for Sacajawea, the Indian woman who joined the Lewis and Clark Expedition for 16 months 200 years ago. Richards agrees there’s an unpaid debt.

“Sacajawea wasn’t acknowledged, wasn’t paid, wasn’t recognized,” Richards said, yet she repeatedly made the difference between their success and failure, and even their survival.

After the Corps of Discovery traversed the western lands, Clark wrote to Charbonneau (Sacajawea’s husband):

“Your woman who accompanied you that long dangerous and fatigueing rout to the Pacific Ocian and back diserved a greater reward for her attention and services on that rout than we had in our power to give her.”

“She saved their bacon,” Richards explained. “She directed them . . . she made the connections for interpreting to get horses . . . she was a crucial part of their whole success, yet was paid nothing.”

“I don’t want this to be just another sculpture of an Indian girl,” he said. “There’s a deeper story.”

A deeper story

To Richards, Sacajawea has come to represent the exploitation of, not only Sacajawea, but also her people, the Lemhi Shishone, in a steady diminshment over the years since the American expansion into lands previously occupied by Indians.

“The Lemhi were demoral-ized into a life-style no longer successful,” he said. “Some see themselves as the Indians’ Indian.”

“They’ve been moved off their tribal lands, and given a very small reservation by President U.S. Grant in 1875. Thirty-two years later, Teddy Roos-evelt put them at Fort Hall ( Idaho ).” And, Richards explained, the money for the Lemhis’ land wasn’t even paid to the 400-member group, but was divided among all 6,000 Indians then at Fort Hall.

The Lemhi also lost their burial grounds. The tribe still lives on the reservation at Fort Hall, Richards said, but yearns to re-occupy their ancestral lands near Salmon, Idaho.

“They want to go home.”

Hometown art

Richards attended Kelso High School in the early 1970s, served two years in the U.S. Navy, graduated from Lower Columbia College and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in sculpture from the Museum Art School , now the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland , studying under Manuel Izquierdo.

After marrying his wife, Patti Richards, a Rainier elementary school teacher, Tag Richards did a stint at a local sawmill, played “Mr. Mom,” to the couple’s two children, Nathan, 11, and Leah, 8, and taught sculpture part-time at Lower Columbia College.

“I looked around town,” he recalled, “and noticed there wasn’t much art in public spaces.” Aesthetically offended by the little pump house on the otherwise-lovely banks of Lake Sacajawea, near the Washington Way bridge, Richards envisioned a sculpture in its place.

When the City of Longview was gearing up for its 75th Anniversary celebration in 1998, Richards approached the planners and proposed several ideas, including a statue of Sacajawea at the Lake , which the committee favored.

Besides an artist, Richards might also qualify as a gymnast, if “hoop-jumping” is a measure. He met the City of Longview ’s requirements, passing the tests of the parks and recreation board, historic preser-vation commission and the City Council, which approved the design of the sculpture and its placement at Lake Sacajawea , on the peninsula near the historic Longview Community Church .

The location by the water lends an important element to the art, Richards said, placing the statue in a quiet, reflective setting.

Richards said the sculpture, which portrays Sacajawea in a serene, maternal pose, lifting up her baby, symbolizes a loving and supportive maternal bond, as well as an older nation supporting a younger one. It was Sacajawea’s nurturing aspects that contributed so much to the Lewis and Clark party, he noted.

City leaders remain eager to see the project completed in time for festivities surrounding the Lewis and Clark Commemoration, said Rich Bemm, Longview ’s Park and Recreation Director. While there is no formal deadline, Richards said he shares that goal, but has proceeded slowly, treating every aspect of the project with sensitivity and respect for tribal customs and protocol.

Friendship with the Ariwites

Richards’ early research led him to Judy Duff, a local Indian educator and, ultimately, to Rod Ariwite, the Lemhi spokesman and a relative of Sacajawea.“Rob’s grandmother’s grandfather was Caneahwait— Sacajawea’s brother,” Richards explained.

Richards developed a close friendship with the Ariwite family. Executive Director of the Fort Lemhi Indian Community, Rod Ariwite is leading the effort to gain federal recognition and re-instatement of the Lemhi tribe. He has endorsed Richards’ project and provided him living space and a studio at Fort Hall.

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Richards has devoted much of his time doing historical research, working with models­—including Rod’s daugther and infant grandson—learning about the history and culture of the Lemhi people. They’ve included him in special activities, allowing him to visit sacred sites, and participate in ceremonies and the “Gathering of the Tribes.”

As Richards learned more, he said, “I started feeling a lot of compassion. . . One intention of this project is to enlighten people about the Lemhi.”

“We have a huge Lewis and Clark machine,” he noted. “They’ve got Lewis and Clark everywhere, but where is her (Sacajawea’s) story really being told?”

Legal details

A 501(3)(c) non-profit corporation has been formed and its Board of Directors and other volunteers are currently seeking grants from foundations which fund cultural and educational projects. Tax-deductible, individual, private donations are also invited.

While Richards says he understands that the project must be marketed and promoted in order to attract funding to complete it, he doesn’t want to see it over-commercialized or trivialized, becoming merely another Lewis and Clark tourist attraction. The entire work, a monumental size bronze statue, will cost about $200,000 for casting, installation, landscaping, lighting and signage.

The project’s scope and scale may be reduced or done in phases, depending on how fundraising goes over the next few weeks, he said. And some legal details remain to be clarified with the City.

Copyright is sometimes an issue when artwork is donated to the public, Richards said. The bronze statue, once placed at the Lake , would belong to the City. But in most cases, when a piece is given to a public entity, the rights to reproduce the image remain with the artist who created it, Richards said.

If possible, he hopes to direct future financial benefits to the Lemhi. But one thing is certain about Tag Richards’ tribute to Sacajawea. “It’s not gonna be a Happy Meal toy,” he said. “I can’t bastardize the project or let the story be lost.”

Little voices

Richards visits school classrooms, sharing stories, leading clay projects and talking about Lewis and Clark. He asks thid kids, “What would Clark, Lewis and the others think about what we have done to Sacajawea’s people . . . who got them the horses, who got them through the mountains, who didn’t kill them?”

“I go to the schools,” he said, “in hopes that one of these little voices may turn out to be a Senator, or work for the BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs) and realize there’s an injustice that’s been lingering since 1807.”

Richards’ journey has consumed more than seven years’ time. Besides logging some 30,000 miles on his car, driving throughout the Northwest doing research and pursuing funding possibilities, Richards has worked without pay, relying on his wife’s income to support the family and even re-financing their home to obtain funds to keep the project going.

“She (Sacajawea) was never paid,” he said, “and I figured that (also working for free) was a part of my journey.”

“When I first started into this, I never intended to go this long,” Richards said. But in the completion of his sculpture, he may help right an old wrong.

“We may not ever be able to give them back what we’ve taken, but, her story will have been told.”

YOU CAN HELP: Send your tax-deductible donation to:

Sacajawea Sculpture
P.O. Box 2872
Longview , WA 98632

For more information, visit:
www.sacajaweasculpture.org

or call:
Dr. Donald Fuesler,(360) 423-8228
Gerald Bouchard (360)577-6353 or
Karen Morse, (360)636-4354.

WANT TO LEARN MORE?

For a school presentation or program for a community group interested in the project call
Tag Richards (360)636-5646

... the Tag Richards piece . . . is the most authentic and realistic Sacajawea piece across this country. I strongly feel that this piece emulates the finest qualities of motherhood and the sincere friendship of our grandmother, Sacajawea.

---from a letter of endorsement from Roderick Ariwite, Executive Director, Lemhi Shoshone