When Starkville High School’s choir rolled up to the state choral convention in Hattiesburg in November, other teachers there were a little surprised to see Shawn Sullivan driving the bus.
“There have been a few times he’s been our bus driver,” SHS Choir Director Jennifer Davis said. “Other choir directors are like, … ‘Is that who I think it is?’ And I say, ‘Yeah, that’s our band director.’”
Sullivan will soon become much more familiar with Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District’s buses. Next fall, one of the state’s best-known and most decorated band directors will trade in his conductor’s wand to become director of transportation.
“I’ve been doing this for 30 years,” Sullivan said. “I just felt it was time to transition to something different in life.”
He will leave behind a legacy that includes 18 straight years of superior ratings for his concert bands, numerous grand championships in marching band and twice having bands perform at the state band director’s conference in Natchez.
“That’s sort of unique,” he said of the state conference. “You have to be invited, and they just take one band a year.”
Many of his students have become musicians, teachers, even band directors in their own right. More still played in college bands on scholarship while studying for another career field.
And really, for Sullivan, the students have always been the point.
“The biggest thing for me is seeing the kids have a love of music they can take with them,” he said. “… What makes my day is to see the kids get that ‘Ah!’ moment when they get something or they feel success. When we walk off stage and we’ve performed a brilliant concert, and you see the glow on their faces.”
He will miss that “very much,” he admitted, holding back a few tears. “But it was time.”
Born in California to a military family, Sullivan bounced around all over before settling down in Blytheville, Arkansas, a small delta town in the extreme northeast part of the state. He started playing tuba in the sixth grade, a passion that grew more serious a year later after his football aspirations ended with a broken elbow that required surgery.
“The doctor said I didn’t need to play football anymore, so I said, ‘Man, the band looks really good,’” Sullivan said. “And I was pretty good at it.”
He earned all-state band honors twice in high school and was named a McDonald’s All-American his senior year. He earned his music education degree, and later an education administration degree, at Arkansas State University. Then he embarked on a band directing career that took him to West Memphis, Arkansas, and Memphis, Tennessee, before spending the last 19 years in Starkville.
‘An entertainer, a comedian and an educator’
Sullivan said he is much more laid back now than when he started his career. Still, especially during practices for marching season, you could catch glimpses of an animated Sullivan, running around the field, jumping up and down as he tried to instruct 140 students to play and move in time.
“I tell young directors, you almost have to be an entertainer, a comedian and an educator to get them to do what you need them to do,” Sullivan said.
For much of Sullivan’s career, his daughter Margaret Ann was an equally familiar sight at marching practices and in the band hall, from the time she was a small child. Now a freshman psychology/pre-law major at Ole Miss, she spent her high school years as her father’s first-chair French horn and marching band drum major, earning a spot in the Mississippi Lions Band four-straight years.
“It’s hard to go on after (that),” Sullivan said. “I’ve talked to other educators who have had their children in the classroom. Then when they don’t, it’s just different. She made me a better teacher because I wanted her to be the best she could be.”
But he admits this year’s band is among the best he’s ever had, especially this spring’s concert bands.
“I feel like it’s a great way to go out,” he said. “… I’ve gotten very spoiled. This group I have right now has gotten so good it’s just … a well-oiled machine. That makes it very hard to walk away right now because next year’s band is going to be phenomenal. Whoever walks in here (as director) will be walking into a gold mine.”
Davis said she has seen the success of Sullivan’s “student-centered” approach firsthand. When she moved to Starkville eight years ago, her son, Connor, was a sophomore trombone player.
“Shawn made sure Connor was taken care of,” she said. “He introduced him to kids to connect him … to make sure Connor had a good transition. I appreciated that as a mother.”
Sullivan also fosters a great working relationship with his colleagues, even if it meant going out of his way to share the spotlight. The first time the SHS band was invited to play at Natchez, Sullivan asked the choir to come sing a piece as part of the concert’s finale.
“That was generous of him,” Davis said. “That’s a moment where he’s being shown off for his work and his skills as a conductor, but he was willing to share that with the choir.”
Sullivan said he is looking forward to the challenge of running SOCSD’s transportation department and he believes his leadership skills will transfer well to the new role.
“It’s about building relationships and being able to work well and communicate with people,” he said. “… My style will be a lot of the same. It will be getting to know (the people), getting to know the system, then tweaking it.”
Davis wishes him well. Hopefully, she said, she won’t have to start pulling double-duty.
“I’m not a bus driver and my people are not bus drivers, though I hear the new transportation guy may make us reconsider that,” Davis said, laughing.
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 39 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
