Fall semester 2025

I have been blogging so heavily that I forgot to report the news!

The Fall semester was the Fall semester. But it ended with a bang, for sure: 

My fame as the Voice of the Appalachian State University Marching Mountaineers continues to reach farther and wider. :) I read names of our graduates at our fall Commencement ceremony this time around. I'm not sure I have had that much fun in a while, and I hope our deans and registrar might ask me again.

I played the funeral of one dear Barbara Lee, former band chaperone at Statesville (N.C.) Senior High School, when my sister and I were coming up the ranks. Her grandson, the Rev. Dr. Robert W. Lee, sat in on my sacred music courses when he was coming through Appalachian, and we have all stayed in touch. A most kind and grieving family.

Our football team was not bowl eligible but got invited to a bowl, anyway, at which time the Marching Band began to scramble to join them. But alas, we're not going after all. So that bit of potential post-Christmas madness evaporated. I might beg a neighbor to turn to ESPN and let me watch the game.

After Commencement, I made my usual semi-annual trek to Des Moines, Iowa, where my wife lives. And Christmas began to sprout legs and grow. As of this writing (Dec. 22, 2025), I have played for a most wondrous Lessons & Carols for St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral, organized and conducted by their new director of music Kyler Brown, formerly of New York City. And I am on deck to host the staff of the Cathedral for Christmas Eve dinner between their services, and I'll play for St. Mark Lutheran in West Des Moines on Sunday, Dec. 28, in pro bono thanks for the practice time.

And then I get to rest. For a week. Before the spring semester begins.