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A Columbia County Boy's Recollections and Memories of Columbia County Florida (2012) Lenvil H. Dicks

CARL ROBERTS, MY HIGH SCHOOL BAND DIRECTOR

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When I was in the 5 grad Mr. Carl Roberts came by the classrooms of all of the 5 graders and 6
graders and gave a little talk, and said that if there were any of us that wanted to play in the band,
whether we had an instrument or not, to write our names on a piece of paper which our homeroom
teacher would then see that he got. I remember asking him how much it cost, and he said it doesn’t cost
anything. When I got home that afternoon I talked to my mother about it, and she asked the same
question “how much does it cost?” Keep in mind that this was in 1938, in the depth of the great
depression, and the first question that was asked about anything usually was, “how much does it cost”.

I told ma that the band director said it would not cost anything and that if we could not afford an
instrument the band had a few instruments that we could use to learn to play on until such time as we
could afford to perhaps get our own instrument.

I signed the paper the next day along with 3 other boys, all of whom 1 have lost contact with many years
ago, but they were Eugene Matthews who ended up taking lessons on the tuba, JW Braddock, who
studied the E Flat Alto Hom, Jack Willis, who also took lessons on the Alto Hom, and who later moved
to Punta Gorda, a place that I had never heard of at the time, and of course I was the fourth one. Mr.
Roberts put me to learning to play the baritone horn, which was probably the largest instrument in the
band except for the tuba, and 1 was told many many times by various people “boy, that horn is about as
big as you are!”. We went to the band hall for about 35 or 40 minutes each and every day, and Mr.
Roberts had all four of us sit outside the band room in the yard, in a place sort of by our self, and just
learn to start making the sounds on the horn. He showed us a little bit about lip placement and the
method of getting the air into the instrument, and told us that when we had learned to get a dependable
and proper sound on the instrument, he would start giving us music lessons. The horn I was using was
also played in the High School Band by a boy named Lloyd Swilley, who really played quite well, and
produced the prettiest most pleasing sound on that baritone horn that I have heard since. Lloyd was
really quite a gifted player as well as being a brilliant student.

Incidentally, Lloyd Swilley was the first person from Columbia County to be killed in World War II. Fie
entered the Army before he graduated, and in those days there was no air force. However, there was a
division of the army which was called the army air force, although not a separate branch of the service
like it is today, and Lloyd learned to fly a fighter plane, and was lost over the Pacific fighting the
Japanese after Pearl harbor. Although I really did not know Lloyd Swilley very well personally, I felt a
sense of personal loss when I heard he had been killed, since I had made him my idol in the sense of
what I wanted to make that baritone horn sound like.

I grew to love and respect our band director, Mr. Carl Roberts, whom I soon began to realize was not
only a very excellent trumpet player (he had previously played with several large name.bands, such as
Blue Barrens Orchestra, and the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. In addition to that Carl was an airplane pilot
back in the days when there were very few airplane pilots and that is probably why Lloyd Swilley
decided to go into the part of the army where he could fly a plane. Carl was also a jeweler and watch
maker, as he could take a wrist watch apart into a hundred pieces, repair what was wrong with it and
then put it all together again. In fact after he stopped being Columbia High School band Director he
opened a jewelry store and watch repair shop, which he did for a couple of years before moving to
Leesburg where he again became a High School Band Director.

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