His Students Knew The Score

Scott Fischer’s adolescent terror of school band director John Terris wasn’t unique.

“Twenty-nine years ago, I was a timid junior high student - and frankly, John, you scared me,” the Coeur d’Alene architect recently admitted to Terris in front of hundreds of the band director’s friends and former students.

Throughout the room, heads nodded in agreement. Terris’ broken batons and frosty glares, his demanding schedules and intimidating insistence on excellence were unforgettable. But so were his results, as Fischer reminded the crowd.

“You forced me to be better than I was,” he said to the tuxedoed, silver-haired man who taught two generations of Fischers. “You taught us to expect excellence as individuals and to take pride in what we do. Thank you for touching my life.”

Improving life was all John Terris wanted to do for kids, and he was so successful in his 33 years of teaching that hearts sank recently at news of his impending retirement.

“I feel bad for all the kids who’ll never have him,” one parent whispered to another during Terris’ final concert.

Music was Terris’ ministry from the moment he raised his baton at Hayden Lake Elementary in 1965. Even at 24, he knew his mission.

“I saw myself in those kids and I didn’t want them to make the same mistakes I did,” he says, settling himself on a vacant first violin chair in Coeur d’Alene High’s music room. “As adults, we need to take the bull by the horns.”

Terris was so unfocused as a kid that he flunked eighth grade twice. Music was the only subject that reached him, through the efforts of a nun who taught him piano and organ for five years.

“I remember Sister Martine Mary saying, ‘We want results, not excuses.’ I’ve never forgotten that,” he says.

At Spokane’s West Valley High, he took up the violin and sat in his first orchestra. He liked the discipline, recognized how important each musician was to the final product and decided to be a band director.

Eastern Washington University admitted him provisionally, but he was ready to work. Classes fascinated him.

“I never paid attention in high school. It was all new to me,” he says.

Terris found the teaching style that appealed to him in his brass instruments professor.

The retired military man was stern, organized and stuck to business with out alienating his students.

“He was very genuine,” Terris says. “Lots of kids didn’t like him, but everyone respected him. I think that’s where I picked up my ability to be friendly without being too friendly.”

He roared into his first job in the Coeur d’Alene School District full of idealistic energy. He taught elementary school strings, junior high band and pep band.

“I liked Mr. Terris, but he was awfully impatient with people. He wanted them to play correctly and if they didn’t get it or didn’t pay attention, well, he got impatient,” says Jim Gray, one of Terris’ first fourth-graders.

Gray stayed with Terris three years, eventually played professionally and is now Lake City High’s choir director. He realized how much Terris had taught him after he began teaching strings six years ago at Lakes Middle School.

“The finger positions, notes, techniques he taught me served me well,” Gray says. “I retained them and used them. His instruction was pretty potent.”

Terris is characteristically candid about his blustery beginnings.

“My first year, I was very intense,” he says.

His intensity became legendary as the years rolled by and he took over as Coeur d’Alene High’s band director.

“I had heard the stories,” former student Chris Cheeley said at a recent roast for Terris. “Flying batons, punting garbage cans, broken music stands - and I mean the big, old heavy black ones - plate glass doors slammed so hard they shattered.”

There are tales of broken instruments and tearful students.

“I’m concerned my director baton sales will fall off now that he’s retiring,” says music store owner Denny Burt with a laugh.

After Terris was named Idaho’s Music Educator of the Year a few years ago, one student couldn’t resist phoning him.

“He said, ‘I don’t think you deserved it,”’ Terris says and admits he wasn’t surprised. “I wanted to say, ‘I don’t think I deserved it either,’ but I told him we all changed over the years, we all make mistakes and profit from them.”

For each student he’s discouraged, there are dozens who credit Terris for changing their lives.

“I was asked, ‘Outside of my family, who had been the most influential person in my life,”’ Cheeley said at Terris’ roast. “There was no hesitation in my reply: John Terris.”

Terris expected his students to share his dedication. He rose every day at 3:15 a.m. to prepare himself for early morning practice sessions. He arrived at school at 5:45 a.m. and began teaching small groups at 6:30 a.m.

Many days ended at 10 p.m. after the band played for football or basketball games.

He demanded daily practice outside of school, respect and preparation. Freshmen suffered the most as he initiated them into his sink-or-swim world. The ones who sank lost; the ones who stuck it out reaped huge rewards.

Terris revealed his fun side to the students who proved themselves. He sneaked one group into the state-house at 1 a.m. during a state basketball tournament and marched others in full uniform through sleeping neighborhoods at 11 p.m. after the Lilac Parade. He did cannonballs with his kids in the pool.

He was so committed to work that he never married and never regretted it. Music even dominated his private life - he played organ for St. Thomas Church for 30 years and helped launch the marching Perfection-Nots. Friends finally persuaded him to try cycling as a change of pace. He loved it.

Terris turns 57 on Tuesday and will leave the school district next month. But his legend will stay for generations.

“It’s all about making ourselves do what we have to do, whether we like it or not,” he says. “I really believe that’s the bottom line.”