LEIST INFLUENCES MUSICIANS

JACKSON -- When Nick Leist, the head band director of Jackson R-2 schools, decided to step down from the podium and set aside his baton, he announced his retirement to his band students first.

He didn't want his "kids," as he calls them, hearing the news from someone else.

"We're like a family," Leist said. "I'm going to miss the association with my kids and the other directors."

Leist, with nearly 30 years in the Jackson music department, will retire at the end of the school year, concluding a career that has made him one of the most successful band directors in Southeast Missouri.

Every year for the last 15 years, the Jackson band program has consistently placed 40 to 50 student musicians in the All-District Band. Although the band pools talent from throughout the region, about 50 percent of the members are Jackson students.

Sometimes three or four students a year make it to the all-state band. This year, Jackson will send three students and one alternate to the band.

"The band at Jackson is a good example of the way it should be done," said James Arnold, director of the Scott City band and longtime friend of Leist. "The kids at Jackson love him."

Leist also has been a great resource for young band directors just out of college who need some help and direction, Arnold said.

"I just tell them to call Nick. He'll bend over backward to help," he said.

In recognition of his accomplishments as a conductor and a mentor, members of Phi Beta Mu, a state organization of band directors, selected Leist as Missouri's Outstanding Band Director of 1996.

Leist is quick to attribute the success of the Jackson band program to the team-teaching approach used in the district. The award, he says, was as much their's as his.

Leist teaches alongside Pat Schwent and Scott Vangilder, with Schwent giving primary instruction to the woodwinds, Vangilder to the trumpets and percussion, and Leist to the low brass and French horns.

"Each one works in his own specialty at all levels -- beginning, intermediate and advanced. We try not to step on each other's toes. We respect each other's turf," Leist said.

He didn't always have colleagues around him to share in the music duties. When Leist first came to Jackson in 1968, he not only taught band but also was the choir director.

The administration, seeing the success of music programs that used the team-teaching approach, hired Schwent to help Leist with the bands. After Leist had a severe heart attack in 1980, the school board hired a third director.

Leist, who graduated from Scott City High School in 1958, was honored Sunday at the Scott City Schools Christmas concert. He was a guest conductor for two songs performed by the junior high and high school bands. A sign on the door to the auditorium read, "Welcome Home, Nick."

As a boy growing up in Scott City, Leist learned to play the trombone before his arms were long enough to stretch the slide all the way out. He tied a string to the slide just so he could reach some of the positions.

While playing in an "Oompah Band" with his boyhood friend, Chap Arnold, Leist influenced his first in a long line of upcoming musicians. That fledgling musician, was Chap's kid brother, James Arnold, now director of the Scott City band.

"He was the reason I decided to play trombone," Arnold said.