Youthful a-Piehl

Walking out to the practice field in a Ohio State University sweatshirt with his faded scarlet and grey hat turned backward, Sam Piehl could be mistaken for a high school trumpet player.
But then he opens his mouth.
As soon as Piehl starts speaking, it’s clear he is the new man in charge of the Fort Recovery High School marching band.
He talks to his students about posture, timing and volume, his tone telling just how important the details are to him. It’s that passion that won him the job, just two months out of college from a field of 150 applicants.
“I just think he’s still a kid at heart with his energy and enthusiasm. You just saw a fire and an energy that the committee really liked,” said FRHS principal Jeff Hobbs, who headed up the search committee for a new director after Megan Beavers announced just a few weeks ago she would be leaving to take a job at Licking Heights High School near Columbus. “We saw a lot of similar characteristics that we saw in Megan over the four years that she had been here.”
Piehl had a quick turn-around, accepting the job on July 18 and visiting the school the next day to chat with Hobbs. He met a few band members on that trip, and three days later he was in charge.
His first day was the first day of band camp.
“I think everybody was just a little terrified,” said FRHS senior Elle Sutter, who is in her second year as drum major. “We had been with Miss Beavers for four years, and then to go to (Piehl) was a big adjustment.
“It hit us and it was so fast. We only had about two weeks to realize she was gone and then all of a sudden we had a new band director.
“It’s definitely exciting. Nerve-wracking, but exciting.”
That first week together was a challenge.
Although the band already had its music and drill selected for the year, the students hadn’t had time to learn that music together or practice marching before camp as would normally be the case. And there wasn’t much of a chance for the new director to learn everything either.
“It was very difficult getting our pacing down,” said Piehl, who spent that first week living with the family of guard instructor Lori Rohrer before finding an apartment in Coldwater. “And the kids had to get used to me, the way I move things along.
“I think Tuesday was the first real rehearsal we got better. Monday we kind of got back into the swing of things. (Tuesday) we got better, and it was awesome.”
 Piehl, who graduated from Ohio State University in May with a bachelor’s degree in music education, has bounced around Ohio living in Norwalk, Westerville and Findlay before going to high school at Medina, east of Cleveland.
There he was a two-time state hockey champion with the Bees, while also participating in band and choir.
He spent four years marching for the Buckeyes, and was also a member of the Madison Scouts Drum and Bugle Corps. During school he served as a student teacher at Grandview Heights, which is just northwest of Columbus.
His primary instrument is trumpet, and he also took bassoon lessons in college. He plays every band instrument at an eighth-grade level or higher.
Not only will he lead the marching band, he’ll also be in charge of the concert band and choir at FRHS. And at the middle school, he’ll teach fifth through eighth grade band and seventh and eighth grade choir.
“I really want this program to grow,” he said. “We can get more kids involved. I want band to be cool.”
He’s already thought about the possibility of adding a jazz band.
For now though, his focus is on getting the marching band ready for its first competition in mid-September.
Fort Recovery’s show — “The Bringer” — includes themes from “Mars”, which is part of the seven-movement orchestral suite “The Planets” by Gustav Holst, and “The Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber” by Paul Hindemith.
Piehl calls the music “very dark” but hopes his group’s future is bright as it continues to build off the base Beavers began to lay down when she also took over the program as a 22-year-old just out of college.
Seniors Hannah Kaup, Mitchel Homan, and Sutter all said they are hoping to break the school-record high score they set in competition last year and earn another trip to the state competition. Piehl is looking to do everything he can to help them reach those goals.
“I’m here for the students,” he said. “I want them to have the best experience possible.
“This is about them. It’s their band, not mine.”[[In-content Ad]]