As seen in the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman www.frontiersman.com
John R. Moses
Frontiersman
TALKEETNA – What began as a grim search through the rubble of a charred band room turned into an almost
joyous experience Thursday. Two music teachers and some parent volunteers found and recovered a trove of
musical instruments spared by the blaze that leveled Su Valley Jr./Sr. High School on June 5.
“It was a great experience. It was music from the ashes,” said Talkeetna Elementary School music teacher Sandy
Shoulders who, with former Su Valley music teacher Jonathan Mc Bride, led a small but hardy band into what
remained of the school’s music classroom.
It was also music in the ashes, because the first thing Mc Bride did upon reaching the piano and uncovering the
keyboard was to try it out.
The group expected the worst, and found some of that.
Mc Bride said much of his former classroom was unrecognizable.
“It was pretty weird. I knew it would be,” he said of his unofficial expedition into a formerly comfortable setting.
Ash, debris and music sheets were among the jumble. “At one point we found the carpet,” he said.
Finding the carpet would be a little disorienting in that setting, where feet sink into ash and every step through the
debris is a baby step.
Just feet from a completely burned area, the group found that a wall behind the pianos containing cubbyholes used
to store musical instruments was almost untouched. The cases and instruments had suffered water and smoke
damage.
Cases with clarinets, brass horns “and the $4,000 tuba” were passed person-to person out of the rubble, Mc Bride
said.
Shoulders said an upright piano was located but could be damaged by water. Most miraculously, the school’s grand
piano escaped apparent fire damage – but not debris. Sheetrock seems to have fallen atop the instrument’s cloth
cover and shielded it from some of the heat, smoke and water.
“It looks like it was kind of a soft landing,” Mc Bride said. He sat down to play it and “only about half of the keys
worked.”
He said that was probably due to the weight of the debris atop he piano.
Shoulders noted that a lot of the salvaged instruments were “old and cranky” before the fire.
A couple of choir risers were salvaged, but the school lost its choir robes, and the “big, tall, goofy hats” along with
any other parts of band uniforms were not to be found, Shoulders said. Some music was found intact.
McBride left his position at the school before the fire. He and his family will move soon from Willow to Washington
State. He said a new music teacher will have to build the program up from “ground zero.”
At least with the salvaged instruments, he and Shoulders said, things are looking a little brighter for Su Valley’s fall
music classes than they did at that time last week.
All was quiet on campus Friday, where school custodian Joseph Wilson cleared debris.
Wilson was able to salvage two new pieces of welding equipment from the shop area.
Music from, and in, the ashes at Su Valley High