LAKE ELSINORE: High school's new band director returns to her alma mater

Annette Tarnowski was a valedictorian in 2001

By Jenna Hunt - For The Californian | Sunday, September 7, 2008 4:05 PM PDT ∞

LAKE ELSINORE ---- Annette Tarnowski's path to becoming the Lake Elsinore High School band director was fueled by her passion for music and the desire to help inspire that same passion in young people.

Tarnowski, 24, was one of the valedictorians of Elsinore High class of 2001. Before that, she learned about music as an elementary school student in the Lake Elsinore Unified School District.

She said she enjoyed working under her band directors in both middle and high school, where she excelled in piano and flute.

When her Elsinore High School teacher, Terry McPherson, retired as band director in June after 30 years at the school, she was poised to assume the newly opened position. Tarnowski spent a year as an assistant band director at Redlands East Valley High School while she was completing her teaching credential program, and she had spent the past year as a music teacher in the Lake Elsinore district.

"I felt pretty prepared after that one year," she said. "I'm putting everything together and picking and choosing from all my mentors to make my program work."

Tarnowski, who had a 4.25 grade-point average at Elsinore High, said she knew for a long time that she wanted to teach band.

"I didn't know I'd be back here to be band director," Tarnowski said. "You think your teachers are going to be teaching forever."

After high school, Tarnowski attended Cal State Fullerton in the President Scholars Program, which included a full scholarship.

She earned a bachelor's degree in August 2006 in instrumental music education and piano pedagogy, and has a long-term goal of continuing her study of music in graduate school. She said she would like to get her master's degree in conducting at Fullerton.

"I had some really great mentors there, and I'd like to catch them before they retire," she said.

Last year, Tarnowski taught in the Lake Elsinore district's elementary education music program. She moved among six schools and taught about 375 children, visiting two or three schools daily, she said. This year, she splits her time between directing music at the high school and continuing to teach in the elementary music program.

"The elementary school kids are exciting. It's so much fun," Tarnowski said.

At the end of last year, she thought she was facing a "pink slip" because of a reduction in the teaching force. Instead, she landed the job of her dreams, she said, which means she will have the challenge of stepping into the position held for so long by her former teacher.

Tarnowski said that, at first, she wasn't sure whether the students would have a problem with her direction.

"They have joined me on my bandwagon," she said. "As individuals, the students are opening up."

She said a band camp held the week before school started helped unify the students and was a lot of fun.

"High school band is like a second family for the students," she said.

Each morning, Tarnowski can be found leading a 43-member band, teaching the 35-member guitar class or instructing 54 students in choir, which is new this year.

In the early afternoons, she teaches in the elementary schools and returns to the high school by 3 p.m. for band rehearsals, which often keep her at the school until 8 p.m.

"Every day is a different schedule," she said. "It's definitely a balancing act, but I'm really enjoying it."

Tarnowski said she has had many music mentors, and that she finds herself repeating words from the past now that she is back in her old high school band room.

"I find myself saying the same things he (McPherson) said," she said. "I just see so many similarities. I want to uphold the traditions he had."

As Tarnowski sits in the office once occupied by her former band teacher, she is surrounded by trophies from his great success.

She said she keeps the trophies, especially the first two awards earned by his students in 1978 ---- before Tarnowski was even born ---- because they are McPherson's favorites.

"I look up and think of Mac," she said.

McPherson said it is an honor to have Tarnowski take the position. He said it should be a smooth transition for her because she was a student at the school.

"I'm happy to have a former student take over. I think it's fantastic," he said. "She's very intelligent and inspiring. I wish her all the best, and I know she's going to do a great job."

When she is not teaching school, Tarnowski teaches private piano lessons and coordinates and directs the music ministry program at St. Frances of Rome Church in Wildomar.

She said she would like to play in a community band some day, but for now she enjoys returning to her college to play in the alumni band.