Cloudy skies early, followed by partial clearing. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 83F. Winds SE at 10 to 15 mph..
Partly cloudy skies. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 68F. Winds ESE at 10 to 15 mph.
Phil and Nadine Fahrlander of Minden pose outside the art gallery at the Minden Opera House in Minden Saturday, Oct. 27, 2018. Phil, who taught instrumental music in the Minden Public Schools from 1968-97, will be inducted into the Nebraska Music Educators Association Hall of Fame Nov. 15.
Phil and Nadine Fahrlander of Minden pose outside the art gallery at the Minden Opera House in Minden Saturday, Oct. 27, 2018. Phil, who taught instrumental music in the Minden Public Schools from 1968-97, will be inducted into the Nebraska Music Educators Association Hall of Fame Nov. 15.
MINDEN — As an artist, Phil Fahrlander knows personally the value of beauty in making human life fuller, richer and more meaningful.
That value shines through his drawing and painting, his writing, his work restoring old photographs, and his hobby of restoring antique automobiles.
As an educator who retired after a 38-year career teaching music in three Nebraska public school systems, Fahrlander also knows his highest professional calling was to help young people recognize the value of the arts and humanities, embrace them, and make them part of themselves — not only for school days, but for all their days.
But part of what made Fahrlander so successful in his work, and what has left his former students with so many good memories, was his knack for hitching the passion of youth to the wagon of artistic endeavor. And that is why, in the 1970s and 1980s and 1990s, the Minden High School Marching Band was something special to behold.
Fahrlander spent the largest part of his career, 1968-97, directing bands at MHS, “Home of the Whippets.” He and Nadine, his wife of 59 years, continue to make their home in Minden in retirement, leaving their collective and individual artistic marks on the community in ways large and small.
On Thursday, Fahrlander, 83, was honored in Lincoln as the 109th inductee into the Nebraska Music Educators Hall of Fame. The ceremony — Hall of Fame induction is the Nebraska Music Education Association’s most prestigious award — took place during the group’s annual awards banquet at the Cornhusker Marriott Hotel.
Tom Jaworski of Hastings retired in 2017 after a 43-year teaching career that included 31 years as band director at Adams Central. As a longtime neighbor and competitor of Fahrlander’s, he can attest that Fahrlander’s efforts made an impression not only on his school and community, but on music educators and programs throughout the region.
“I just remember as a young band director when I started in 1974 that the Minden band was considered to be the top-drawer band in the central part of the state,” said Jaworski, who is the NMEA historian and has coordinated its Hall of Fame activities for the last eight years, continuing a project begun four decades ago by Duane E. Johnson of Hastings College.
“The Minden band was always the one you wanted to emulate,” said Jaworski, who joined the Hall of Fame himself in 2016. “As I matured in my career, (Minden) was the band I wanted to be as good as or even pass. His bands made my bands better because I wanted to beat him.”
Looking back on it all, Fahrlander said he is proud to have helped students develop a love of art through the shared experience of working together for a common purpose.
To motivate them, he said, he had to meet the students where they were and develop a strong rapport, while at the same time maintaining boundaries to command their respect.
He also knew he must give the students excellent music and marching opportunities that would be worthy of their best efforts, plus plenty of chances to let their hair down and have some fun with less serious material.
At times, he even was able to use his background in visual arts to help connect with students struggling to interpret a particular passage of music — say, by comparing musical notes to colors.
“Probably 90 percent of it was getting them to focus,” he said. “Having learning be fun so they would keep coming back for it was certainly part of it, too.”
Fahrlander graduated from Nebraska City High School in 1953. He served in the U.S. Army from June to December 1957 and also spent 5 1/2 years with the Nebraska National Guard, attached to the Nebraska City and Beatrice units of the 34th Infantry Division.
He earned his bachelor’s degree in education from Peru State College in 1959 and his master’s degree in education from Kearney State College in 1968.
Fahrlander began his teaching career at Diller, a small community in Jefferson County, where he worked for five years (1959-64) teaching vocal and instrumental music for all grades plus two English classes. He then moved on to North Loup-Scotia Schools in north central Nebraska where he taught vocal and instrumental music for all grades from 1964-68.
He and his young family moved to Minden in 1968. There, he set about building the band program that earned him many accolades in the decades to follow.
Successes in street marching and field show competitions through the years were numerous and included such events as Melody Roundup in Hastings, the iconic Harvest of Harmony in Grand Island, the old Pershing Auditorium indoor marching competition in Lincoln, and the Nebraska State Bandmasters Association state marching contests, plus occasional out-of-state travel to events such as the American Royal Parade in Kansas City.
In 1990, Fahrlander worked with the Minden Chamber of Commerce to launch Minden Bandfest, a street and field marching celebration that has taken place October since that time, giving musicians from large and small schools a chance to perform for judges in events devised strictly for bands. Thirty-six bands competed in Bandfest this year.
One of the most memorable highlights of Fahrlander’s Minden tenure included a major undertaking in 1975: Transporting the entire band by bus to the Portland Rose Festival in Oregon, where Minden was named “Best of All Outstate Bands.”
In interviews for a video segment prepared for Thursday’s NMEA Hall of Fame ceremony, several alumni mentioned how the Minden band was like a big family, with all members feeling responsible for the success of the entire group.
“I appreciate so much the lessons I learned from marching band and being part of something so much bigger than I was and greater than I was,” said Tom Osterbuhr of Bellevue, a band member from the mid 1970s who was part of the Portland trip.
Indeed, leading the band was a family affair for the Fahrlanders. In their video comments, Phil and others especially praised Nadine for her active support of the program, most visibly on competition days.
Phil and Nadine have two sons, Eric of Crete and Jeff of Omaha, and six grandchildren. One grandson, Jacob Fahrlander, now is a music teacher at Lincoln Southwest High School.
In his video remarks, Eric, now director of bands at Crete High School, recalled growing up around the MHS band room, which was open early and late for students who needed a place to rehearse, study or just spend time together.
“I had 100-plus-some brothers and sisters,” Eric said.
Over the years, Fahrlander said, he came to understand how tapping into teenagers’ competitive vein — their desire to win — could help them achieve more than otherwise would be possible. The trick, he said, was to challenge the impressionable young people and hold them accountable for their performance without crushing their spirits when things went wrong, all the while remaining relatable enough to keep the lines of communication open.
“I got so I thought of them as my own children,” he said.
Fahrlander said his personal experiences early in life not having a strong sense of direction, followed by his experiences in the military, gave him insight for how to steer young people to success through commitment and hard work.
“Almost to an individual, teens do not have great self-confidence or great self-respect,” Fahrlander said. “They’re not sure where they’re headed or what they want to do. I could relate to that. I spent many years of my life that way.
“I thought if someone had come along and challenged me, that might have made a difference.”
In the military, Fahrlander said, young troops from all backgrounds and circumstances work together for a single cause, sometimes when the stakes of success are high.
“You learn things through self-discipline and discipline itself,” he said of the military. “We all had to do the same thing. We either succeeded together or we failed together. That made an impression on me.”
Fahrlander said his goal was to have large bands because of the impressive feats they could accomplish. But while competition with other schools was a motivating factor for many students, he said, at the end of day the real challenge for students was simply to excel.
“It was competing with yourself,” he said. “’You can do better than this.’ Basically, we were always competing more with standards than we were with other schools.”
Fahrlander’s involvement with music education at the state level took many forms. He is a past president of the Nebraska State Bandmasters Association and past chairman of band affairs for NMEA. He wrote a humorous column for the Nebraska Music Educator Magazine for more than 12 years and also povided artwork for the magazine covers for more than 12 years. He also designed various logos for NMEA and NSBA through the years, led many state committees, and has served as a marching band and concert band adjudicator and clinician many times.
His state-level awards have included two Distinguished Service Awards from NMEA, the NSBA Don Lentz Outstanding Band Director Award, the Distinguished Service Award from NSBA, a Cooper Foundation Excellence in Education Award, and the Distinguished Alumnus Award and Gary Thomas Distinguished Music Alumni Award from the University of Nebraska at Kearney.
In retirement, Fahrlander has been active with the Minden Community Players, Minden United Methodist Church music ministry, Jensen Memorial Library board of directors, and the board of Educational Service Unit No. 11. He played an important role in the planning of the Minden Opera House renovation and served as programming consultant for the Opera House in its opening year, 2000-01.
Fahrlander said he is proud of the work he did with students, gratified by the pride many alumni take in their Minden music experiences, and encouraged by the efforts of alumni now working in the community to advocate for a strong band program for the future.
Todd Jensen, a Minden businessman and onetime MHS drum major who has been the one and only coordinator for Minden Bandfest, said Fahrlander’s vision and efforts have changed Minden for the better.
“That vision he had continues to live on and touch a lot of students’ lives well into his retirement,” Jensen said.
Andy Raun, a 1989 graduate of Minden High School, is editor of the Tribune and a former MHS trombonist. Contact him at 402-303-1419 or araun@hastingstribune.com.
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