Jennifer and Dr. Timothy Rhea
"Best thing ... is the students. Hands down." Dr. Timothy Rhea oversees more than 1,000 students as Director of Bands and Music Activities at Texas A&M University, including the Aggie Band. At StoryCorps, Rhea discusses with his wife, Jennifer, how the music program has grown over the past 22 years and why he loves it.
- [Dr. Rhea] So, you know as far as the band directors here, they kinda stay forever and the way that they count the band directors here, I am like the fifth, tenured band director or whatever you want to call it, that's come through. So I've been here 25 years and so my predecessor, Ray, he was here 14 and then Joe T. Haney was here 17 and then before that, Adams was here 27. Then Dunn before that. So, people come here and they stay and this is a great place to work. And the best thing about it's the students, hands down. I mean, that's the best thing. You put up with all the other stuff because of the chance to work with them and then as we've grown and we've added all these different groups... When I came on the band staff, Jay Brewer was here. Jay had been in the band and then it was Jay, Ray, and myself and that was the band staff and we had Dorothy, who was our administrative assistant, I believe is what we called her. As we continued to add bands we continued to have positions. All of us are in that little building together. All of us are kind of doing the same thing and when you don't have a school of music, where you're around people that are doing the same thing that you're doing all the time, you really bond with each other very quickly. And so Jay and I have worked together for 25 years and I don't know that we've ever had an argument about anything. I think it's because we're just so frankly honest with each other just about. I mean, there is never any gray area. Now, that's kind of how all of us work over there.
- [Jennifer] Mmhmm.
- [Dr. Rhea] So, now that we're music activities and we're all together, of course, we have more directors, but we also have the choral people, then we have the orchestras to watch out for as well, but it's the same kind of environment. We all have open door policies
- [Jennifer] Mmhmm.
- [Dr. Rhea] with each other and with our students. We all talk to each other every day and it's like you've told me before, I guess, from observing from the outside, it's almost more like a family than it is people that work together. And like a family, you have some days that aren't as fun as other days are, but I think that everybody on that staff is so invested in the success of the students and trying to do everything the right way and at the highest level. That's what makes it work. So, now Jay and I have been together 25 years. Travis has been with us, I know it's like 12 or 13. It's a long time. Of course, Russell's new and he's only been there... Russell Tipton for two years, but it's like he's been with us forever. I mean, he just came right in and of course, Susan, my administrative assistant. Just absolutely wonderful. She's the first one we've ever had that had a band background.
- [Jennifer] Right.
- [Dr. Rhea] And so, when we are talking all of our terms and terminology and everything, it just works so well and it's like she told me when she took the job, She said, "I need to do everything that I can for you guys so that you can do what you're paid to do, which is work with the students and do the music and I'll take care of everything else for you guys." And she really does a wonderful job with that. David Kipp has been here two years less than I've been here, does the singing cadets, does a wonderful job. We have a very, very, great relationship. When they put David as someone that answered to me, I thought that was gonna be kind of different, because for 20 years, he kind of didn't do any different thing. So that's worked out very, very positive and of course...