The final steps to becoming a Guide Dog

By Jessica Woods

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the first two years of a guide dog’s training. I would now like to continue that story by telling you about a dog’s professional training and how it is matched with its owner.

When a puppy raiser brings a dog back to the school, it is brought in to the receiving Kennel. This is done to help the dog transition from being in a kennel by itself to sharing it with a few others. Also during this time, the kennel staff are observing the dog’s behavior. They are watching for any signs of distress or aggression toward other dogs.

After this, the first thing a dog must pass is a medical examination. A vet is looking for any potential medical issues that could hinder its career as a guide dog. If none are found, the dog moves on to a professional trainer. If a problem is found the dog is most likely removed from the program and goes to a good home. In many cases, the puppy raiser will get the dog back as a pet. But if they can not take the dog, Southeastern will adopt it out into a good home.

At this time, the dog already knows basic obedience and simple find commands. Now it is up to the trainer to enhance these skills and to expand the dog’s knowledge. For instance, a dog must learn how to navigate in traffic. It must be able to cross a busy highway without any problems. In addition, the dog is taught to disobey its owner if there is danger in the area. An example would be if the owner tells the dog to cross the street and a car is coming. The dog is taught to disobey that command and stay where it is or back up. Since Bristol has saved my life on a few occasions, I know how important this skill is.

The trainers take the dogs into many different areas. They have to learn how to navigate the many different surroundings that its owner might put it in. Even though I don’t use escalators that much, Bristol was taught how to do it. Bristol also knows how to handle a revolving door if we were to encounter one. In addition, the dog is also taught to look for overhanging objects and other things that might endanger its owner.

This process can take up to a few months or maybe even a year. It really depends on the dog. Once they pass all the training, it is ready to be matched with a blind person. This could only take a little while or it could take longer. It depends on if someone comes in that would be a good match for the dog.

Matching a dog with its owner has a few steps to it. The trainers evaluate the people that are coming in for a dog. They are considering the rate at which a person walks, the person’s lifestyle and place of residence, and the person’s personality. The trainer then finds a dog that most closely fits the person’s life and personality. Once the dog has been matched and given to the person, the training for the person begins.

Independent-film fans seek refuge in Gulf Breeze

by Paul Smith

video segment produced by Paul Smith

When most moviegoers decide to take in a film, they will usually check the show-times for the recent blockbusters, and then make the short jaunt down to the local megaplex for the latest installment of Hollywood escapism.

But imagine instead, checking the show-times of the most highly praised independent films, and then making an hour-long road trip down to a small four-screen theater in a Gulf Breeze shopping center to watch a movie many others will never get the opportunity to see.

That is exactly what more than 30 percent of the moviegoers do at the Gulf Breeze Cinema 4, as the theater draws a large fraction of its audiences from Fort Walton Beach, Destin, and even Fairhope, Ala, according to theater owner Jim Norton.

That’s because the Gulf Breeze Cinema 4 is an indie or art-house theater that specializes in foreign and independent films. And it’s not just the only one of its kind in the Pensacola area; it’s the only indie-theater between New Orleans and Tallahassee.

And as so, many of the films that play here cannot be seen anywhere else for hundreds of miles.

When the theater opened in 2004, audiences came to see controversial and acclaimed films like “Fahrenheit 9/11” and “Sideways.”

These days, audiences have flocked to the theater to see Oscar-winning films like “Slumdog Millionaire” and “Milk.”

“I think I opened it for two reasons,” said Norton. “I selected to specialize in independent films for business reasons because no one else was doing it in the area. And for personal reasons, I’ve always liked art and independent films.”

Norton, a Wisconsin native with a seasonal home in Pensacola Beach where he resides annually from December until May, has been in the theater business for many years.

“At one time I had as many as ten movie theaters in Florida,” he said. “I’ve sold most of those off to retire in this area.”

As Norton has learned over the years, the business of owning an art-house theater differs from that of the larger, commercial movie theaters.

For one thing, Norton actually hand-selects each film he shows at the theater; and the process for booking independent films can be very time consuming.

Norton stays abreast of the latest independent films by tracking their developments with websites such as indieWIRE.com and BoxOfficeMojo.com. When he finds a film he wants to show, he calls the distributor himself and negotiates a profit-distribution contract.

When a commercial theater opens a first-run film (a movie with a nation-wide distribution debuting on thousands of screens), it will typically pay between 70 and 90 percent of profits from ticket sales back to the studios which produced the picture.

This profit sharing of gross box office sales drops 10 percent each following week the film is open, generally settling on about 30 percent going to the studios after the fifth week or so.

“In the art film business we don’t pay that much,” Norton explained. “On an average art film, I may only pay 35 percent of my ticket sales to the film studio. That’s how I survive because we simply don’t draw the same volume of people you do at a commercial theater.”

One person who was drawn to Jim Norton’s theater was independent filmmaker Brett Haley.

“I love this theater,” said Haley. “It’s the only theater in Pensacola that actually plays movies that I would go see.”

In a strange coincidence, at the time of filing this report, Haley was shooting a scene from an independent film in the lobby of the theater, the first time the theater has ever been utilized for such a purpose.

“I wrote [the film] for Pensacola because I knew I could make it here. I knew I would be welcomed,” said Haley, 25, who grew up in Pensacola but currently lives in New York. He refers to his new feature-length independent film, “The New Year,” which he co-wrote with his sister-in-law, Elizabeth Kennedy.

“I called Tom Roush … and told him I was looking for a movie theater, and he said Jim [Norton] was the guy to talk to,” said Haley. “And I called Jim and he just completely welcomed us with open arms.”

Tom Roush is the Escambia County film commissioner whose primary job it is to work with the state of Florida to attract the movie industry into shooting productions on-location in the Pensacola area.

Roush also heads the Pensacola International Film Festival, which, in recent years, has used the Gulf Breeze Cinema 4 as its main theater for exhibiting films.

“One of the reasons I started the film festival in 2003,” Roush said, “was because the films that [Jim Norton] now shows weren’t playing here. The really marquee, award-winning indie-films that were playing in New York or L. A. … they just weren’t coming here. He opened up four screens to just indie films … So, I think it’s great. I go there all the time. I love it there. It’s not like a normal, commercial theater. It’s like a living room that plays great movies.”

Though currently on hiatus because of the country’s recent economic woes, the film festival has been a great success in past years and has drawn a much larger than usual audience to Norton’s theater.

The festival typically attracts a crowd of a few thousand people. This influx of movie-goers has allowed Norton to acquire some difficult-to-obtain independent films.

For example, in March of 2008, the Pensacola Film Festival Spring Screen Series held at the theater featured the film “The Savages,” writer/director Tamara Jenkins’ Oscar-nominated independent film starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney, which never played on more than 200 screens nationwide.

“Without the film festival … we would never have had that film in this area of the country,” said Norton.

And even when the film festival is not taking place, Norton is still able to get his hands on some lavishly praised and hard-to-find films.

At the time of this report, the theater was showing the Swedish vampire film “Let the Right One In,” one of the most critically-acclaimed movies of 2008.

This film was only being shown in 37 other theaters across the country. To put this in some perspective, the film “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” was being shown on more than 3,000 screens during the same period.

“The fact that he got a small Swedish film about a vampire girl here in the Pensacola area is unbelievable,” said filmmaker Haley.

The next closest theater showing this film was more than five hours away in Atlanta.

But whether making the long journey down Highway 98 from Destin or the short trip over the Three-Mile Bridge from Pensacola, Norton assures moviegoers that independent films will always have a welcome home at the Gulf Breeze Cinema 4.

“I’m always gonna show independent films here,” Norton said. “I’m making some money at it and I enjoy it. It’s the most fun business in the world.”

Movies - Watchmen film misses point of graphic novel

by Paul Smith

Alan Moore’s “Watchmen” was largely considered to be the “holy grail” of graphic novels, the treasured masterpiece of superhero storytelling that was in a class all by itself.

At full disclosure, while I am an avid reader of graphic novels, I grew out of reading superhero comics when I was about 12 years old. I grew out of superhero comics because, frankly, superheroes are extraordinarily lame.

While I’m sure there is the occasional well-written superhero graphic novel (e.g. Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns”), but ultimately you just can’t make me care about muscle-bound men in rubber-tights with supernatural abilities fighting world-domination-bent super-villains  – that is except for “Watchmen.”

There is a reason “Watchmen” was so good, and it is this very reason which I feel director Zack Snyder completely missed when making his film adaptation.

“Watchmen” is certainly not a bad movie, but it is far from a great movie.

This is the point: “Watchmen” the graphic novel was revolutionary and amazing because it was satirizing the superhero genre. Snyder’s film becomes exactly what Alan Moore set out to satirize.

Snyder does try desperately to stay faithful to the graphic novel (for which he can be applauded), and there are moments in the film that work very well. However, the film would have greatly benefited from being about a million times more subtle stylistically.

Snyder began his career making flashy car commercials before venturing into feature films – and it shows.

As soon I saw the murder of the Comedian in the opening scene, I knew Snyder had blown it.

The fight-scenes in the film are choreographed within an inch of their lives, and the sound-effects added seem like something straight out of a cartoon. Yes, they may have been ultra-violent, but nowhere even close to realistic. You practically expect to see the “Zap!” and “Pow!” graphics from the old Batman television show to appear on screen during these sequences.

And while Snyder does use the layout of the comic panels to set up most of his shots, he fills the scenes with so many slow-motion segments and also zooms and pans and dollies the camera into a dizzying style which screams “you must know that this movie is awesome!”

Well, it wasn’t supposed to be awesome in that way.

Remember, “Watchmen” the graphic novel came out in the mid 80’s, and at the time, superheroes were still a medium of storytelling largely directed at children. What Alan Moore set out to accomplish was to write an ultra-realistic, gritty take on superheroes aimed squarely at adults.

He was mocking the genre by saying, “all of this superhero stuff is so cheesy and lame, I’m going to write a story that actually attempts to demonstrate what the world would really be like if superheroes existed.”

The world Alan Moore created was one where superheroes were psychopaths or neurotic-depressives – because to be something as absurd as a superhero, you would have to be totally nuts. In Moore’s world, superheroes did more harm than good.

Even the very concept of Dr. Manhattan is a complete satire of how the superhero comic craze came out of the atomic-age. I mean, come on – a nuclear researcher gets locked in a test chamber and develops superpowers? Moore was mocking the absurdity of the concept, but at the same time making it as realistic as possible.

The closest example I can think of which employs a similar satirical style as the graphic novel is Clint Eastwood’s “Unforgiven.”

Keep in mind, satire does not automatically equal funny. Satire will take some truth and heighten it to the absurd or the extreme. When taken to the absurd you get Stephen Colbert satirizing Bill O’Reilly with “The Colbert Report;” when taken to the extreme you get Oliver Stone satirizing America’s violence-and-celebrity-obsessed culture with “Natural Born Killers.”

“Unforgiven” is in many ways a satire of the western genre by being an ultra-realistic or extreme version of it. But extreme does not have to mean flashy and extravagant.

In my opinion Snyder should have employed a cold, calculated, objective and even somewhat distant style to “Watchmen.” Stylistically it should have been more similar to “Unforgiven” or the wonderful film from last year “Let the Right One In,” which was pretty much a satire on the vampire genre by being an extreme or realistic version of it.

Basically, Snyder should have asked himself, “How would Akira Kurosawa make this movie?” – because the film badly needed Kurosawa’s touch for subtlety.

And the violence should have been gritty and ultra realistic, not over-choreographed with cartoony sound-effects. The movie should have felt more film-noir and less X-Men.

And by missing this point, Snyder misunderstands Watchmen, and will also force others unfamiliar with the graphic novel to forever misunderstand Watchmen.

Also, some of the casting was pretty bad. Jackie Earle Haley was good enough as Rorschach, though the voice seemed rather forced at times. Patrick Wilson was almost perfect as Nite Owl. And Jeffrey Dean Morgan was just about flawless as the Comedian. Everyone else was basically horrible.

I’ve never been a big fan of Billy Crudup. I thought he was awful in the terrible movie “Big Fish.” I appreciated the gentleness he brought to Dr. Manhanttan, but his voice sounded like Dr. Manhattan had just reached puberty which was very off-putting.

Mathew Goode was far too young and small-framed for Ozymandias, and he couldn’t keep a consistent American accent.

And both Malin Akerman as Laurie Jupiter and Carla Gugino as Sally Jupiter were appallingly bad.

Granted, some of the scenes worked very well, and the opening credit sequence was amazing (by far the highlight of the film). But overall, seeing Watchmen on the big screen just felt so horrendously cheesy.

Snyder understood that “Watchmen” was superheroes for adults, but he made it feel like it was for teenage boys. And as a result, the film became what Moore was satirizing.

Nice try, Snyder… but you missed it.

Grade: C+

Why students should speak out about budget cuts

Staff Opinion

On March 3, about 200 students and faculty members of Washington High School staged a protest over proposed budget cuts to education that attracted both Pensacola Mayor Mike Wiggins and Escambia County Superintendent of Schools Malcolm Thomas to attend. Also, in Tallahassee, students from FSU, FAMU, and Tallahassee Community College have also all recently staged protests.

Meanwhile, PJC is facing its own budget cuts, so far $1.4 million and many suspect millions more will be cut at the beginning of the next fiscal year in July. But where is the uproar from the PJC students?

It’s time for the students to rise up and let their voices be heard!

We at The Corsair would like to see more conviction from the student body concerning these budget cuts. We would like to see more students display the same “can do” spirit exhibited by the students at Washington High. Simply put: we need more “fire in the belly” and less apathy.

These cuts directly affect everyone at PJC; we all have a stake in this process.

So far the budget cuts have trigger increased class sizes, the cancelling of low-enrollment classes, and a hiring freeze in some departments. And this could just be the calm before the storm.

If indeed more cuts are coming, PJC could see the elimination of classes not required for degrees (such as creative writing), entire programs eradicated, the downsizing and reduction of administration and faculty members, an across-the-board salary reduction for the faculty, and the possible laying off of full-time faculty members.

All of this will adversely affect the quality of education administered at PJC.

This very real danger at hand arises from a possible additional 10-15 percent cut in the 2009-10 budget for PJC, which could result in over $5 million lost for the start of the next school year – that is, if something is not done to stop it.

And while it would certainly be nice to see more concern over the budget cuts, we at The Corsair also feel such concern should be directed appropriately from both students and faculty alike.

It’s easy to get upset with the administration and Dr. Ed Meadows; however, the real culprits responsible for the slashes in the education budget are in Tallahassee.

Dr. Meadows is dealing with the hand he has been dealt, but the ones shuffling and handing out the cards are the state legislators.

Many productive things could be done by the students and faculty to show their dismay with these budget cuts.

For one, we could take a cue from the students at Washington High School. The Student Government Association at PJC could help organize a student protest to be held on campus – not directed at the administration – but directed at the budget cuts themselves. If coordinated well, a protest could generate some real media attention.

Also, starting on March 31 the Florida Junior/Community College Student Government Association is organizing the “Rally in Tally,” a campaign in Tallahassee to directly lobby the state legislature on issues of great significance to students. Anyone interested could attend this important event.

And if you cannot attend the “Rally in Tally,” why not write or call your legislators directly? The more people who make their voices heard, the more chance there is to stop to budget cuts. Listed below is the contact information for the state legislators for our districts.

Getting a quality education is the most important thing one can achieve in order to compete in the market place.

President Obama in his recent speech to Congress stated, “In a global economy where the most valuable skill you can sell is your knowledge, a good education is no longer just a pathway to opportunity – it is a prerequisite.”

It’s time for the apathy to end! If you don’t want to see vital funding stripped away from PJC, and if you value the quality education PJC has maintained for 60 years, then we should all help do something about it!

Rep. Dave  Murzin
204 House Office Building
402 South Monroe Street
Tallahassee, FL 32399-1300
Phone: (850) 488-8278

Rep.  Clay  Ford
322 The Capitol
402 South Monroe Street
Tallahassee, FL 32399-1300
Phone: (850) 488-0895

Senator Durell Peaden, Jr.
406 Senate Office Building
404 South Monroe Street
Tallahassee, FL 32399-1100
(850) 487-5000

Senator Don Gaetz
320 Senate Office Building
404 South Monroe Street
Tallahassee, FL 32399-1100
(850) 487-5009

Music Scene Showdown

by Nathan Cooper

Music surrounds our everyday lives, from our car stereos and iPods, to the ringtones on our cell-phones. It is a part of our lives that I find most enjoyable. The problem with Pensacola is that there just isn’t a good enough venue to support a halfway decent music scene.

Sure, there are venues around, the Civic Center for example. Let’s be realistic though, the kinds of bands that would come to Pensacola (Slipknot and the like aside), just do not bring in enough people to fill up a venue that big. Not to mention the ticket price on a show at a place like the Civic Center is most often exuberant. People do not want to pay fifty dollars for a show even if it is one of their favorite bands. I wouldn’t pay fifty dollars for the best of shows; it’s simply too much money for a college student to fork over for one night.

The solution is smaller venues, which we now see popping up all over Pensacola. There are open-mic nights at places like Sluggo’s and the Belmont Arts Center which are great for local talent. Musicians from around town like Anna Jeter and Steel Calhoun play their music to the enjoyment of the crowds of people gathered to see them. This size of Sluggo’s and Belmont are fine for the small crowds gathering around the local music scene but as soon as a hip indie band pops into town, it is clear that these venues are not adequate to support a decent-sized show.

Sluggo’s for instance, hosted the band Girl Talk on Tuesday March 3, 2009. Normally for a local show, tickets for admission are around $5, a very reasonable price. When a non-local band called Why? came to town, ticket prices were at their highest I’ve seen them, at $12 a head. Now it seems like Girl Talk will be putting that to shame with around a twenty-dollar price per head.

I don’t know if it is just me, but I think Sluggo’s has gotten a little too big for its britches, so to speak. Wolf Parade played at the Variety Playhouse in Atlanta for around $17, a band with similar popularity to Girl Talk playing a much better venue, both in size and sound quality, for a comparable price. Now you may be thinking, that’s not that much better of a deal right? Consider that Dr. Dog, another band of similar standing to Girl Talk in the music world, played a show at Club Downunder in Tallahassee for only $10. Ten bucks to see Dr. Dog in a venue that is at least twice the size of Sluggo’s seems like quite a deal comparatively.

I’m not sure what makes the price so high at Sluggo’s, whether it is the venue or the artist; but either way, I think if we had a venue that was truly dedicated to its shows, we might be able to reel in some decent talent with a ten-dollar price tag. Until then I suppose I’ll pay twenty dollars to be crammed into a side room listening to the remixed pop of Girl Talk, hoping that someday a better venue will host a show that’s worth looking forward to see for the price.

Job Fair for health programs

Student Nursing Association hosted its annual fundraiser Job Fair at Warrington Campus on March 12. Hospitals and Agencies set booths for many allied health programs such as nursing, radiography, sonography, and surgical tech to check out what these facilities were offering in jobs school.

 

“Our purpose is to get the students out into the community, to land jobs, it’s also to help employees,” said SNA President Debbie Fickling, relating to the economy. “This is a way for these companies to look at our students and hire our students.” PJC allied health program graduates are in competition with many other schools for jobs after graduation such as UWF, Pensacola Christian College, and schools just across the Alabama line.

 

“Students have found this to be a great day to talk to prospective employers and to a get feel of what type of jobs are available and working conditions,” explained SNA adviser and nursing instructor Judith Evans.

 

Twelve vendors participated at the job fair including UWF who gave valuable information for nursing students wanting to continue their education for a bachelor degree. Uniformly yours, West Florida Hospital, North Okaloosa Medical Center, VA Gulf Coast, Lakeview Center, Infirmary Health System, PJC financial aid, and Sylvia Rayfield the author of many nursing books “made incredibly easy” attended and gave out raffles and free trinkets to students.

 

Referring to the SNA members, “The students are really the ones that do the work of developing the mailing list, sending out invitations, setting up the tables and chairs, running a hospitality room for the vendors and, usually have a food sale going on at the same time,” said Ms. Evans. SNA members sold hotdogs, nachos and t-shirts as a part of the clubs fundraiser.

 

Varying on how many students attend the job fair as well as vendors, the job fair has had a past history of success for students getting information for future jobs or becoming care techs at the local hospitals. Getting PJC students more notice was the main goal for yesterdays fair and it was an overall success with many students getting to talk to the vendors of future opportunities.

PJC’s Simulation prepares students

Katie Coseo

 

Many allied health students attending PJC at the Warrington campus use the Mary Ekdahl Smart simulation to prepare for real life situations. Many students would say that the simulations are a great help for learning in that students can make their mistakes with a mannequin than with a real person.

 

Paramedic Program Director Don Lee, along with Education Director for the Center of Patient Simulation Marta Suarez-O’Conner and Simulation Specialist Annette Orangio, worked together to create a simulation for the LPN and Paramedic students to join forces in saving a life.

 

“Marta and Annette have just bent over backwards,” exclaimed Lee. “We experimented with the last paramedic class,” however because both programs had conflicting schedules the simulations couldn’t be carried all the way through.

 

Two groups of three LPN groups will assess a patient who is in need. The first group began to notice the patients’ early signs of deterioration. The simulation is paused while the first group briefs the second. In the control room a teacher sets up the vitals and machines that will “monitor” the patient. When the second group arrives they assess the patient and take vitals, but this time the patient is going downhill fast with slurred speech and moaning voiced by the teacher.

 

“The idea is do the LPNs say ‘Hmm we need to go to the hospital,’” explained Lee. “He’s going to arrest, so my group is going to do the whole shock, intubate, and drug thing.” Lee acts as dispatcher with a two way radio to his class. Paramedic students are selected to be “on call” and will answer to the emergency call that the LPN students will hopefully make.

 

Orangio commented that the simulation with the LPNs, “It’s very important. They often don’t have the opportunity to go through all of the motions.”  She explained that there is an importance of team coordination especially when working in long term facilities where deciding to call 911 is crucial in care.  

 

When the LPNs say the magic words to call 911 they begin CPR until the paramedics arrive. Three arrive in the simulator with gurney, defibrillator and emergency medications. CPR, shocking, and administration of meds were preceded.

 

At the end of the simulation, review from Don and Annette were given to both groups in order for them to improve for the future. Don corrected the nurses on some of the CPR techniques as well as pointing out to both groups the importance of team work and establishing who should do what during the emergency when help arrives.

 

As for the “patient” he will live to do another simulation for another day.  

Tailgate with the baseball team

The PJC baseball team is hosting a tailgate party March 17 from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the pensacola campus baseball fields.

Stop by and get a chance to meet the players and support the team. Hot dogs and soda will be provided. Apple pie might also make its way to the field.

Club Awareness Day

Spanish Heritage Civic Band Concert

Preeminent composer, Robert W. Smith, will guest conduct the Pensacola Civic Band performing his new Symphony  No. 3,  “Don Quixote”  during the Civic Band’s “Our Spanish Heritage” concert on Tuesday, March 17th at Marcus Pointe Baptist Church.  The concert is held in conjunction with Celebrate Pensacola’s 450th Anniversary celebration of the settlement of Pensacola in 1559.

 

The 7:30 p.m. concert will also feature an amazing array of Spanish and Spanish flavored music including Tarver’s “El Conquistador March”, Williams Rhoads’, “Three Spanish Ladies”, and selections from “Man of La Mancha” among others.

 

Robert W. Smith is one of the most popular and prolific composers of concert band and orchestral literature in America today. He has over 600 publications in print with the majority composed and arranged through his long association with Warner Bros. Publications and the Belwin catalog.  He is currently published exclusively by the C. L. Barnhouse Company and serves as the Director of Product Development for C. L. Barnhouse and Walking Frog Records.

 

Mr. Smith’s credits include many compositions and productions in all areas of the music field. His original works for winds and percussion have been programmed by countless military, university, high school, and middle school bands throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, South America and Asia. His Symphony #1 (The Divine Comedy), Symphony #2 (The Odyssey) and Africa: Ceremony, Song and Ritual have received worldwide critical acclaim. His educational compositions such as The Tempest, Encanto, and The Great Locomotive Chase have become standards for developing bands throughout the world. His numerous works for orchestras of all levels are currently some of the most popular repertoire available today. His music has received extensive airplay on major network television as well as inclusion in multiple motion pictures. From professional ensembles such as the United States Navy Band and the Atlanta Symphony to school bands and orchestras throughout the world, his music speaks to audiences in any concert setting.

 

As a conductor and clinician, Mr. Smith has performed throughout the United States, Canada, Japan, Europe and Australia. He is the principal conductor of the American Symphonic Winds and the American Festival Philharmonic Orchestra, professional recording ensembles based in Washington D.C. He is currently working on the production of Symphony No. 3 (Don Quixote), the fourth in a series of compact disc recordings of his best-known works for concert band. In addition, he is co-creator of the Expressions Music Curriculum. This comprehensive Pre-K through 12 music program includes Band Expressions, an innovative new approach to teaching music through the band.

 

Mr. Smith is currently teaching in the Music Industry program at Troy University in Troy, AL. His teaching responsibilities are focused in music composition, production, publishing and business.  In addition, he is a managing partner and conductor/producer for American Audio Unlimited, an audio production company specializing in recordings for concert band and orchestra.

 

Tickets for the concert are $5 and are available at the PJC Lyceum Ticket Office or at the door on the evening of the concert at Marcus Pointe Baptist Church, 6205 North W Street, Pensacola, FL.

Next Page »