Leader of the (community) band: Joe Stephens has led the Abilene Community Band for 48 of its 50 years

For nearly five decades, Joe Stephens has kept the Abilene Community Band in tune, guiding generations of volunteer musicians through patriotic traditions and memorable performances. As the band celebrates its 50th anniversary, its story is one of dedication, community and the enduring power of music.

 

By Greg Jaklewicz/West Texas Tribune

The nation’s 250th birthday celebration on July 4 will provide extra bang for Joe Stephens.

When the Abilene Community Band director raises his baton for “America,” the first song of the band’s evening performance on the shady east lawn of Episcopal Church of the Heavenly Rest, he will launch the band’s next era.

On July 4, 1976, a group of volunteer musicians of various skill levels gathered for the first time in honor of the bicentennial of the United States. Formed only weeks before — a June 6 story in the Abilene Reporter-News asked for musicians 21 and older — with the intention of a short-lived run, the band instead has played on for 50 years.

Then 26, Stephens was the band director at Mann Junior High. He played clarinet that first night at Shotwell Stadium, where the band assembled in the south end zone for the city’s celebration.

“My understanding is that it was going to be a one-shot thing to celebrate, but the guys in the band said, ‘Oh no, let’s continue this.’ They showed lots of interest,” Stephens recalled.
The first song?

“That I don’t remember … it was a long time ago,” he said, smiling.

Charles Trayler with Abilene Christian University and Mike Barry with McMurry University were the first directors. Soon, Stephens was asked to lead the band. He was hesitant, knowing how much time his day job took.

“They asked me, ‘Would you at least try?’ I guess they broke me down and I said I’d try it,” Stephens said.

The baton still is in his hands. Stephens has directed the band for 48 years and will enter his 49th year this July 4.

It will be a memorable concert this year, on the occasion of the nation’s 250th birthday.

“At Heavenly Rest, when the chimes go off, I have gotten really emotional. It will happen this Fourth of July,” Stephens said. “The people who come to these concerts really care. They want to hear the community band.

“It’s a joy to talk to them after the concert. It makes you realize that it’s a worthy cause. You are serving the public.”

It also will remind him of his own father, Joseph W. Stephens Jr., who served in the U.S. Air Force and taught his boys how to work and stick with something — like being in a community band for 50 years. It needed glue to hold it together.

“I sensed that need,” Stephens said. “People have seemed to appreciate me, and when you’re appreciated, you think, ‘Boy, I’m doing something worthwhile.’”

A well-traveled band

Joe Stephens is one of two original members remaining. The other is trumpeter Roy Flournoy. Dot McNeil, who played baritone, died in April 2025. This year, tenor saxophonist Betty Landry will be absent; she has moved from Abilene.

The band has played venues here, there and everywhere — Mall of Abilene, the lawn at McMurry University, Paramount Theatre, Abilene Zoo, Dyess hangars, Texas State Veterans Cemetery, the city’s St. Patrick’s Day parade downtown and Old Settlers Park in Buffalo Gap, and, once, on the road at Anson Opera House and Ranger College.

For years, July 4 has been capped by fireworks and the community band’s hour-long performance at Heavenly Rest.

The band first met to rehearse in a public health building just south of the McMurry campus, then at Mann Junior High for 18 months. Stephens jokes that’s why he was asked to direct; the band needed a rehearsal site, and he had the key.

The ACB also tuned up at the Paramount for a few months. Next came a recital hall at McMurry before the university’s band hall became the rehearsal home.

Members’ skill levels range from high school experience through college-level teaching.

Baritone player Kristi Hamm joined the band as an incoming Wylie High junior because her older brother, Kevin, was an ACB saxophonist. She has stayed for more than 40 years because, she said, “of the music and the people.”

“Fourth of July is my favorite concert because the audience gets into the music. They join in and clap,” she said. “And I like the old ’40s and ’50s music. I grew up watching Lawrence Welk, so I like that kind of music.”

Another longtime member is Kay See, who plays bassoon. She joined the band in June 1994.

“My first concert was a Fourth of July concert,” she said. “Those are always special because they are so patriotic, but all the concerts are.

“But this will be very special, and I’m glad that I am part of it.”

A co-worker who played clarinet in the band recruited her. See played clarinet for a year, but when a bassoon was needed for a joint performance with Celebration Singers, she fell back on the instrument she played during high school concert season.

Membership has fluctuated — about 40 signed on for the first concerts — but today there are more than 60 members, more than at the start. The mix of men and women has been close to 50-50, Stephens said.

Bob Johnson isn’t the only out-of-towner in the band — members currently hail from Brownwood, Sweetwater, Stamford, Tahoka and Winters. Tahoka clarinetist Carroll Rhodes played at Hardin-Simmons University with Stephens.

For the big July 4 concert this year, former members are coming from out of state — as far as Wisconsin — to sit in.

Right man for the job

Stephens, a Lubbock native, is a 1964 graduate of Cooper High School, a member of the third graduating class. He was in the band, of course.

The Air Force had brought 11-year-old Joe and his family to Abilene and its still-new base named for World War II hero William E. Dyess.

Stephens started college as a business major at McMurry and finished at Hardin-Simmons. While registering at McMurry, he switched his focus to music.

“I really feel like I was guided to music,” he said. “It was a real pleasure, not something I had to work at.”

He finished college as a Cowboy Band member at HSU, then faced a decision. He was likely going to Vietnam. It was 1968, and the war had escalated.

He auditioned for the band at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, but it did not need a clarinet player. HSU director Marion McClure pointed him toward the 4th Army Band, also in San Antonio. After enlisting and completing basic training, Stephens stayed there for three years. He once got orders to Southeast Asia, but those were canceled.

“That was further musical training,” he said. “They were all college graduates and in the same boat I was. They were phenomenal musicians.”

His military background adds to his appreciation of patriotic music and veterans.

Stephens took the Mann job in 1971 and was five years into what would be a 40-year public school career — he retired in 2010 — when the call for a community band went out.

Abilene had a community band before, but that was 55 years prior to 1976.

The Abilene Chamber of Commerce recognized the need for a community band, but the immediate goal was playing the night of July 4.

The founding fathers, if you will, of the second incarnation were local music store owner Gary DeShazo and ACU’s Trayler.

“I had a summer band (at ACU),” Trayler, who today lives in Dalhart, recently recalled. “I figured I could get those kids to play in it.”

Mike Barry, a director at McMurry entered the picture, he said, offering to provide larger instruments such as tubas and bassoons.

Stephens said Caldwell Music Company also pitched in with instruments and sheet music.

It was expected that local music leaders would join the community band for the milestone celebration. That meant Stephens and four other junior high directors. “The other guys went on to other things, but I stayed,” he said.

One benefit, Stephens said, was that he got to work with adults after teaching budding young musicians at school.

Trayler said his involvement was limited because he had his many ACU duties.

Stephens has yielded the baton on occasion. Trayler has returned to guest-conduct. The director of bands at Harvard, Tom Everett, twice came to lead the band. Aggies whooped it up when Texas A&M band director Lt. Col. (ret.) Roy E. Toler led the band on one occasion in 1993.

Stephens once tried to talk Gov. Rick Perry into conducting. Perry declined, saying the baton was in better hands with its director.

An Abilene treasure

The band regularly has performed fall, holiday and spring concerts. The Memorial Day performance at the veterans cemetery is another staple.

Other events have ranged from the Kiwanis pancake day to the Fur Ball fundraiser for Rescue the Animals.

“It is fun to play the themes, like Christmas, but what I try to do is play something for everyone in the audience,” Stephens said. “You’re going to hear something at a concert that you really like, and hopefully that brings you back the next time we play.”

Longtime state Rep. Bob Hunter often would tap the band for a performance to show off Abilene, Stephens said. Mayors have requested the band.

Special guests at concerts also have included Perry and George H.W. Bush, when he was seeking the presidency and campaigned in Abilene.

The band, Stephens said, got a kick out of its brushes with fame.

The band’s signature song is “Stars and Stripes Forever,” always played at the July 4 concert.

“They all enjoy playing that,” Stephens said of John Philip Sousa’s beloved piece.

The march king himself once came to Abilene to lead a marching band organized at Abilene High School by Raymond “Prof” Bynum. AHS in October will celebrate 100 years of marching music as the oldest marching band in Texas.

Another ACB concert favorite is a medley of service anthems. Those who served in the Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Marine Corps and Navy are asked to stand when their song is played. Stephens also asks family members to stand, respecting their roles in service to the country.

Popular songs on the home front are included — Vera Lynn’s stirring “White Cliffs of Dover” and the Andrews Sisters’ classic “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.”

Stephens said audiences particularly like hearing “When Johnny Comes Marching Home,” which dates back to the Civil War.

Stephens will find new arrangements and mix it up. He wants to challenge the band but not overdo it.

Practice still makes perfect, Bob Johnson said. He trained at then-North Texas State in Denton and taught for 21 years at Ranger College, then at Tarleton State. He has 53 years of music experience and, like Stephens, imparts that training on the younger or less experienced musicians in the band.

Johnson also is a member of the Eastland County Community Band, which meets Tuesday nights. He still practices an hour a day.

“I tell my wife it’s like getting back on a bike. You have to practice,” he said. It’s no wonder, Johnson said, that the band’s best performances are its concerts. “That’s when we play our best,” he said.

This year, four original songs have been commissioned for the band’s milestone birthday. One is titled “Purple Mountain Majesties,” a piece by former McMurry ensembles director Dr. Kendall Prinz, who in June took the job as Cuero High School director. He is scheduled to be here for the debut performance of the song.

‘You don’t have to motivate them’

Heading an all-volunteer band can’t be easy, but Stephens has found more rewards than challenges.

“You don’t have to motivate them. They want to be there,” Stephens said. He might not drive a long distance to be in the band, but those who do tell him, “Joe, we wouldn’t either if we didn’t enjoy it.” That’s the key, having something they really buy into.

Someone who bought into the band was Merry Sue Stephens, the director’s wife.

“Joe and I do the music together,” she said. She joined the band in 1990 and plays bass clarinet. “I help him any way that I can.

“Joe lives for Monday nights. He says, ‘I love doing this.’”

She added: “I think it’s amazing he has stuck with it. This is the beginning of his 49th year.”

Johnson said that since his retirement from public schools, Stephens has become even more focused on the band.

The band also provides an opportunity to play, whether for a musician with only junior high or high school experience or one who has played professionally. Former members include Navy band leader B.A. Waltrip, trumpet, and longtime local musician Leonard Pamplin, saxophone.

Finally, it’s a sense of pride. They are Abilene’s community band, and they personally want to rise to a level of excellence, Stephens said. He wants to challenge his band musically but also knows that skill levels vary.

“They are going to do their best regardless of their level of musicianship,” he said. “They want to play better than they did last time.”

Wrong notes are to be expected, but Stephens said the 50 years have passed with few sour moments. Longtime members will recall going through with a performance the night of Sept. 11, 2001.

Rain has canceled outdoor performances. Once, the handle on a cymbal broke, and the crashing clangs were missed at the most crucial moments. The lawn sprinklers have gone off — not bad for musicians and listeners when the evening temperature remains in the 90s, but not so good for sheet music and instruments.

If the concert runs for an hour, eight chimes resound from the Heavenly Rest bell tower. The band simply has worked that into the show.

And there is the wind, known to blow music stands over and send sheets of music sailing.

Bob Johnson has a unique memory. It was a concert in 2005, with HSU’s Wayne Dorothy guest-conducting, when Johnson became ill about two-thirds into the show. He finished the performance and drove home. He never made it. Instead, he wound up in the Eastland hospital, was flown back to Abilene and, days later, had quadruple bypass surgery.

“I guess that’s not a favorite memory,” he said, laughing.

Twenty-one years later, Johnson and the band will play at 7 p.m. July 4 at Heavenly Rest. It’s the traditional lawn-chair-or-blanket event. Early arrivals get the best view and shade.
Many come dressed in red, white and blue. Flags are waved.

There is no admission cost, and there will be refreshments and some surprises, Merry Sue Stephens promised.

And, best of all, patriotic music for the 51st time.