Struthers middle schoolers jazz it up

STRUTHERS — When Struthers band director Josh Hawkins noticed sign-up numbers for the high school jazz class dwindling well below 10 students, he decided to try an experiment: a jazz band with middle school students.

“I knew we needed to do something if we wanted to have a bigger class in the high school,” he said. “I felt the kids needed to have some kind of experience with jazz before they hit high school, because not many of my middle school students knew about this genre.”

Hawkins said he handpicked seven seventh- and eighth-grade students whom he “knew loved to play their instruments, loved band, loved music” and he “spun the club to them as something special for them.”

The band started as a before-school activity last February where seven students would come on a good day. But as those seven kids started to tell their friends about the group, by fall, as many as 30 students would show up to the early morning jazz sessions, Hawkins said.

For the complete story, read Wednesday's Vindicator and Vindy.com