Music has always been a part of Tallassee High School junior Kinsley Glasscock.
Since she could crawl, and maybe before, she has been around the Pride of Tallassee High School Marching Band, with her father Dr. Robby Glasscock as band director.
“I would come out here,” Kinsley said on the band’s practice field. “Someone would watch me, like babysit me.”
Glasscock and other staff ran rehearsals all while Kinsley watched and listened. A few years later Kinsley was helping with her siblings.
“They would come out to fix lemonade at band camp when they were little,” Kinsley’s father said. “They would probably say they didn’t have much of a choice.”
Kinsley gave dance a try but decided it wasn’t for her. The tips on music rubbed off and two years ago Kinsley was selected to be the band’s drum major. But it was not her father deciding the matter. The senior Glasscock said a panel of judges with music backgrounds scores each student trying out to be drum major.
“It is an anonymous panel,” Glasscock said. “They don’t know names. They only see numbers.”
An accountant adds up scores from the categories and when Kinsley was trying out, Glasscock asked principal Drew Glass to be there to observe.
“In the end I saw a list of two numbers with scores but no names.
“They had to tell me Kinsley’s number,” Glasscock said.
He said everyone has the same opportunities at school to learn, even leading up to drum major tryouts.
“I work with the drum majors when we have a two-day clinic before tryouts,” Glasscock said. “I show them how to conduct and such.”
Kinsley did have one advantage being Glasscock’s daughter.
“As a dad I can work on stuff with her at home,” Glasscock said. “I can say, ‘That is not how that goes. This is how you need to do it.’”
Kinsley handles the conducting during halftime shows and at competitions. She also serves as a leader and mentor for others in the band. Glasscock makes all the decisions related to music selection, drill and practice times.
Glasscock said he tries to keep the band stuff at school and not around the dining room table. But band and music still come up. Sarah Jane Patterson is Kinsley’s step-sister who is on the dance line and her younger brother is Troy who plays the trombone.
“We will watch our shows,” Kinsley said. “He will point out things I could do differently.”
Most often though Kinsley practices her drum majoring and French horn at her mother’s home – but not last week.
“[Tuesday] I was practicing and he was already giving me things to correct,” Kinsley said. “But, he is trying to make me better and reach my potential.”
Michael Bird is a teacher in the Tallassee High School music programs and helps out with band. Bird has been around the Glasscocks “for what seems like forever.” He said Glasscock isn’t overbearing with Kinsley.
“He hasn’t been any harder or any easier on her,” Bird said. “He is not meaner or nicer. He is the same all the time. He is lucky enough to have a drum major that does what he asks of her. She will do it.”
Bird said the requests Glasscock makes of his daughter as a drum major are the same as they have always been. At school Glasscock tries to treat his daughter as a student.
“I like to think I treat them all the same,” Dr. Glasscock said. “I fussed at her in class for doing some of the same stupid stuff other kids do. I would hope they think they get treated the same way no matter if they are my child or a student.”
Kinsley is a junior at Tallassee. Despite the musical upbringing, Kinsley isn’t set on music in her future but hasn’t ruled it out either.
“I’m pretty sure it will be something art,” Kinsley said. “I’m not sure what just yet.”