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Pinehurst band scores big By Sean Wolfe Ashland Daily Tidings It's the Rogue Valley's smallest school, but its band is top notch. That was the assessment of judges at the annual Middle School Band Festival, when Pinehurst School's 12-person band made their bid to win, opposed by bands from Klamath Falls and elsewhere. The band placed first among eight other bands, ending last year's ranking of second-best at the same competition. Music director Linda Connolly has spent the past five years educating and selecting a band from roughly 35 Pinehurst students. "I started some of them in the third grade, but there's only so many kids I can pull from," Connolly said. "I think we won because I know what I'm doing, I love the kids, and I know what I want. So I set them up, and hoot and holler until I get it." The band began with a Mozart overture, followed by two other pieces. In addition, the band sight read a piece they had never seen before. Connolly said the band - made up of sixth, seventh and eighth grader - had consistently been working on pieces ordinary schools wouldn't assign until high school. "This is not elementary grade music. Most of this is taken from my dad's high school music. We could have gotten a lot more points if we'd picked easier tunes, but I like to push them. They're very capable, and they only do as good as the expectations," Connolly said. "With only 12 kids, there's only one on a part, so nobody hides. Everybody holds down their individual parts." Pinehurst, a small 3-room school is nestled in the mountains up the Green Springs, 23 miles east of Ashland on State Highway 66. Diarmuid McGuire, who is one of the school's passionate supporters - as well as the father of Molly McGuire, the band's flautist - calls the school a "living fossil in an age of big, bureaucratic education systems," adding that it provides private school education and public school prices. "As long as this community can keep running its own school, we can make sure that each of our kids gets a personalized, world class, 21st Century education," McGuire said. LINKS: DAILY TIDINGS: Main | News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Opinion | Columnists | AP News | Subscribe | Archives | Weather | Classifieds | Contact Us | Privacy REVELS: Main | Calendar | Dining | Movies | T.V. OTHER: Road Cams Copyright 2003 Ashland Daily Tidings 541.482.3456. 1661 Siskiyou Blvd., Ashland, OR 97520. Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. - Advertisers -