While serving as Bridgeport High School band director from 1972 to 1985, Randall Hall became a notable part of many lives.

A trumpet player from the graduating class of 1976, Brenda Shirkey said Hall provided her with a top-notch musical foundation and served as a mentor in honing her own band director skills.

Hall’s recollections of his years at BHS are sharp.

“One of my best memories was when the marching band played for state band playoffs at Laidley Field and we opened our show with ‘Emperata Overature,’” he said. “I wrote the whole drill myself and with just 64 horn players and percussion, we absolutely filled that stadium with a very wonderful sound. The whole field show was just amazing.”

A similar memory Hall has tucked in his back pocket is a performance at the Liberty High School Band Festival.

“We played something called ‘Canzona,’ then we did another piece, ‘Fiesta’ by Clifton Williams, which was very good,” he said. “I can still see the expressions on some of the other band directors’ faces.”

The band camps, bus trips, concerts and parades have all made a lasting impression, as have his several hundred former students. Hall remembers the dedication and work ethic of his most conscientious students – and the attitude which blanketed the band across the board.

“There was always a very dedicated nucleus of 20 to 30 to 40 students and they always succeeded in dragging the others along – and sometimes they were a little brutal about it,” Hall said. “And I didn’t see any clicks. Anyone who moved in seemed to be accepted very well in that band. To their credit, that’s just the way band members were.”

Bridgeport High School wasn’t Hall’s first rodeo.

“I started my career in 1958 at R-W (Roosevelt-Wilson) during a one-year assistantship at WVU, which means I went down there and worked on my master’s at the same time,” he said.

From there, Hall took a post at East Fairmont High School from 1959-1964.

“Then, I found out about a one-year college position opening at West Liberty College,” he said. “I was there for just a year, just to get used to college teaching.”

Hall’s next position was in Aberdeen, Md. It was short-lived, but led to band directing at West Deptford Township in New Jersey.

“I was there for six years and it was a wonderful job,” he said. “We had a really good time. We were probably the top full-size concert band in the state of New Jersey, including a couple of big schools which were there times as big as us and had maybe three or four bands in their school.”

But in 1972, Hall accepted a job at BHS and he and his family returned to Harrison County.

“I spent the first part of the summer in New Jersey preparing the band for the coming year,” Hall said. “I had prepared them to compete in the Miss America Parade on the board walk of Atlanta City and I was here in Bridgeport while they were getting first place in that parade.”

In Jersey, there were all kinds of performing opportunities – and all kinds of awards.

“But my wife Patty could not adjust to being away from her family, so we came back for that reason,” he said.

At BHS, he ultimately found himself directing a superior-rated band and cherishes good memories of lively field shows and quality performances of march and concert pieces for judged events.

Ironically, it was the building of that band program which put a halt to his career here.

“When I first moved there, there were only 40 in the band and it grew to 120 in that small band room,” he said.

Hall was told by his audiologist that the environment was detrimental to his hearing condition and suggested he go elsewhere. He remembers being touched that the band parents tried to persuade him to stay.

He went on to Washington-Irving, where he directed for a year and a half, but ultimately moved on because of arthritis flare-ups. He moved on to Central Junior High.

“I went there to get out of going to evening games because my arthritis was so bad,” he said.

After a year and a half at Central Junior High, Hall finally called it quits with band directing.

During his 30-year service with public schools, Hall produced superior-rated bands in six high schools located in three different states.
But he still had a musical mission to fulfill, which to date, has lasted yet another 25 years.  

At first, Hall took a job with a fundraising organization. He also hooked up with the Shinnston Community Band as a performance venue and with some area band directors who requested he give private lessons to their students. An opportunity then came along to teach at Alderson-Broaddus College. He also played sax, clarinet and a little flute for local bands, Orlando Columbo and J.R. Farley.

“I also played five summers with West Virginia Public Theatre in Morgantown and up until a year and a half ago, I played Broadway musicals at Fairmont State,” Hall said.

The latter gig was most interesting, he said.

“I doubled up on flute, clarinet and sax because it was a value to them and saved them money if I could cover all three instruments,” he said. “Sometimes during a show, I’d have to switch instruments 40 times.”

He said he received as many comments about people enjoying him switching off instruments as much as they enjoyed the music.
Hall also coordinated a saxophone quartet, which rehearsed at Bridgeport United Methodist Church. A 2003 BHS grad and former private student of Hall’s in Bridgeport and at A-B College, Erica Byrd said she was privileged to be part of that group.

“It was really neat to be on the other side of things. I had been his student, but that was the first time being a colleague of his and that was really cool too,” said Byrd, currently admissions counselor at West Virginia Wesleyan College. “Mr. Hall is probably one of the most influential people in my life in the music realm. He always had such a passion, not only for music, but also for the students he worked with.”

Hall had to quit performing because of vision problems, but he said he does still get to play with some of his students – and that is satisfying.

“It’s their final curtain before they go out into the world and that’s very important to me,” he said. “That’s where my emphasis is, trying to prepare them, the best I can, for what they’re going to face.”

This past year, Hall taught at Fairmont State University three days per week.

“I had 11 woodwind majors, who took one-hour private lessons,” he said.

For the past six years, Hall has also taught at broad-base music class at FSU.

“I teach all the vocalists, pianists, players and percussionists who never had woodwinds so they can at least have a reasonable background should they become a band director,” he said.

Hall has also served as director of the Fairmont State Saxophone Quartet, an eclectic group which plays classics, orchestra music, jazz swing and Latin jazz.

“It’s been a rather exciting performing group,” he said. “They’ve done very well, playing mostly on campus for concerts and departmental recitals. We were also an opening act at the concert of the Shinnston Community Band (of which Hall was a founder)." 

The quartet has competed and ranked first in a couple of state-wide competitions and had good showings at the National Music Education Conference.

Hall also teaches private lessons at Clarksburg’s Bandland & Percussion Center.

“I give lessons on Wednesday afternoons and evenings and Saturdays,” he said. “The folks at Bandland have been very nice to me and it’s a wonderful facility there. I’ve met and worked with a lot of very talented students – about 18 to 20 – in junior high and high school.”

Now age 78, Hall said he continues to be curious about what he can accomplish and contribute. He’s thankful for each opportunity and each challenge.

Among his latest projects is the compilation of recordings of former BHS bands.

“I probably have five or six CDs, with 40 or 50 pieces, including those played by jazz, concert and marching bands,” he said. “The project has been going on for three or four years.”

Hall’s wife Patricia passed away five years ago after losing a battle to cancer. His involvement in music was and continues to be healing, he said.

His daughter Lisa works for NASA in Huntsville, Ala. His older son Carl works for the Department of Energy in Pittsburgh and his younger son Brian is a personal trainer at Fairmont Fitness.

Hall is always glad to run into former band students. He’s proud of the accomplishments of many, including Shirkey. Hall’s constant attention to detail helped Shirkey's band receive first place in a Gatlinburg, Tenn. parade, she said. Responding to his advice, she walked the parade route, strategically planning when the band should break out into full performance mode at just the right location – at the judging stand.

“We walked off the steps and figured out when to play cadence, roll-off, etc. and it all paid off because we were the only band to play a range of dynamics and the judges got to hear the complete song – so we won,” said Shirkey, former band director at Estill County High School in Irvine, Ky., now elementary music teacher and assistant high school director in Gordo, Ala.

Hall also mentioned the talent of Eric Stoneking, who also followed in his footsteps. Stoneking is band and chorus director at Bridgeport Middle School and serves as music curriculum coordinator for Harrison County Schools. He,too, tributes Hall for helping to shape his musical career.

“I am very fortunate to have had Randall as my band teacher in the formative years,” Stoneking said. “He is the consummate educator, musician and communicator. I am a music teacher today because of Randall's imprint on my life.”

 

Top two photographs are taken from the 1976 BHS yearbook, the "Ki-Cu-Wa." They show Hall and a portion of that year's band. 

Bottom two photographs are courtesy of Fairmont State University; Randall Hall, solo; and with the FSU Saxophone Quartet.