For decades, Ronnie Herrington influenced young musicians in Columbia. Recently, the former Columbia High School Band director was honored as he was inducted into the Mississippi Bandmasters Association Phi Beta Mu, Delta Chapter Hall of Fame.
It’s an honor that Herrington and only 32 others in the history of the association have had bestowed on them.
The 83-year-old was given the honor during the State Band Clinic last week in Natchez.
“The Hall of Fame goes back to probably the 1970s or 80s,” he said. “It’s a small group and I feel really honored to be chosen for it. I was probably the oldest band director there. I was active in the band business from 1957 until 1994. I spent six years working in the private sector working in the insurance business, from 1983 to 1989, and then I went back in in 1989 and stayed until 1994, when my wife and I both retired. I’m almost 84.”
Herrington’s band career was not limited to Columbia, however.
“I taught one year in Heidelberg,” he said. “Then I had to go into the service through the Army Reserve. I was in the 291st Army Reserve Band in Fort Jackson, N.C. for my term of service. When I came back to Mississippi, I actually taught private lessons here in the Columbia area for three or four months to finish out the year. Then I went to Lucedale and stayed there for three years, to Lumberton for a year and Pascagoula for four years, and then I came back here. Columbia is home for me. I came back and I’ve been here ever since. My family came to Columbia in 1936, I was two years old. I went through all of my school in the Columbia school system. Columbia is home; I love it and it’s where I want to be.”
Herrington’s wife. Loucinda, to whom he’s been married for more than 50 years, is also a mainstay in the Columbia music community.
“She was the longtime choral teacher here, and she taught piano in this house for years and years,” he said. “She is the originator of the musical at Columbia High School. It was 1979 and she said, “Ronnie, I met with the principal, John Sapen and said I wanted to do a musical.’ He agreed to let her do it. Mary Jean McKay was the drama teacher and I was the band director and we had our things going. We didn’t particularly want to do a musical and so Loucinda said, ‘OK, I’ll do it by myself if you won’t help me.’ So we decided we’d better get on the bandwagon and did. Other than the band program at the school and the athletic program, it’s one of the longest running activities. When we retired, Mary Jean’s daughter, Connie (Wood), basically became the leader of it. I had been the conductor of it, Loucinda was the director and Mary Jean did the dramatic side of it. Loucinda taught them all of songs. After I retired, I started playing in the orchestra, and of course, I still do.”
Ronnie Herrington has fond memories of the Columbia High School bands.
“The bands always made high marks in competition,” he said. “They were a consistent superior band all through the years. I was really active in the band associations during those times. I was president of the Mississippi High School Band Directors Association, president of Phi Beta Mu, president of the American School Band Directors Association and every one of those organizations during that time. I was on the committee that wrote the first curriculum for band programs in the state of Mississippi, along with a woman named Ernestine Farrell. We always did great at solo and ensemble contest. The kids almost always came back with superior ratings. The last time I went, we took 23 kids and had 22 superiors.”
Ronnie Herrington plays trombone in many groups around the area and stringed instruments in others. In fact, his entire family is musical.
“Our children grew up in it (musical),” he said. “Our oldest boy, Chip, is an attorney in Mobile, but he runs the Mobile Big Band. He’s got a Tommy Dorsey, Harry James style band. He’s a trumpet player. My son, Ben, the trombone player was in the McDonald’s All-American Band. He went to California and did the Jerry Lewis Show with the McDonald’s All-American Jazz Band. My daughter, Katie, came along and she went to the American Music and Dramatics Academy in New York City and went on stage on Broadway. Ben has his own group right now called the Meridian Arts Ensemble in New York City. He has numerous CDs, and he presently is playing as the principal trombone at Radio City Music Hall and he also is the principal trombone player in a new musical Anastasia, and he’s a trombone teacher at Princeton University. Katie sings in Birmingham at Church of the Advent, which is a big Episcopal Cathedral there.”
Herrington looked at the recently renovated band hall at Columbia High School.
“It’s named for Loucinda and I,” he said. “It was named for us in the mid-1990s. She was quite prominent as a choral teacher. When she was young, she won the Metropolitan Opera tryouts in Mississippi and could have gone to New York City, but instead she married me and we stayed home and raised a family. She’s quite a musician.”
The recent induction into the Hall of Fame was one of the highlights of Ronnie Herrington’s life.
“Other than capturing my sweet wife, the two highest honors that I’ve gotten were this one that I got last Friday and having our names on the building at Columbia High School,” he concluded. “I’m proud of those.”
Pictured Above: Ronnie Herrington joined an exclusive club last Friday night when he was inducted into the Mississippi Bandmasters Hall of Fame. | Photo by Mark Rogers
