MARQUETTE, Mich (WZMQ) – There are a lot of benefits to learning music from a young age. Up in Calumet, the Copper Kings community continues to support their practice of the music discipline. Teaching creates an opportunity to see that progress in your students for sometimes their entire educational career.
Ryan Watt is the band director at Calumet high school who’s been molding these minds for now 7 years. The music department was funded with 100 thousand dollars from a Copper King that recently passed. “Janet Lokitelli was inspired through her time in this program and therefore wanted to give back wanted to say I was so inspired I was given so much through this school, this community”, said Watt.
Running a full program of the arts can be costly, Watt says that some of the instruments alone in a band room may be upwards of 10 thousand dollars. “You have maintenance, you have to send instruments in to have them cleaned…8 to 12 to 15 thousand dollars a piece”, said Watt
From the mallets to uniform costs, Watt says the support they’ve recieved is heartwrenching. And the teachers express the family who gave the funds has been continued to be a strong supporter of the music program at Calumet. “The whole family there has been part of the band program, it’s touched their lives in a way that they still wanna be apart of it”, Watt continues.
