For years in his early days of teaching, George Feuerhelm took his band students to march in the North Iowa Band Festival in Mason City.

“It was a big festival, and brought in bands from all over the nation,” Feuerhelm said.

When Albert Lea initiated its own band festival four years ago, he couldn’t have been happier.

“It’s a really terrific public relations thing for Albert Lea, and it’s just a terrific thing for the kids,” the retired band and orchestra director said.

But Feuerhelm was unprepared for the call he got a couple weeks ago asking him to serve as the grand marshal of this year’s Albert Lea Festival of Bands, scheduled for June 15 in downtown Albert Lea.

“It really knocked me off my feet,” he said. “When people retire, they tend to fade into the woodwork.”

A native of Lansing, Iowa, he remembers when his band and vocal director took a handful of them to hear the Luther College Band in concert.

“It just blew me away,” Feuerhelm recalled of hearing the band and making his decision to major in music.

Feuerhelm came from a musical family. He considers the trombone his primary instrument and sang in the choir. His older brother also played the trombone. His younger brother played the alto saxophone, and his sister the clarinet.

Feuerhelm went on to Luther, where he played in the band. After he graduated, he was drafted into the Army, and served 18 months in Okinawa. He even taught a course in music appreciation while he was there.

After his discharge, he taught bands and choir for three years in Elmore, Minn. Then he used the G.I. Bill to get his master’s degree in the summers from Colorado State University in Greeley, while teaching during the school year in Corwith-Wesley, Iowa.

When he finished his master’s degree, the band director position in Northwood-Kensett, Iowa, opened up, and he was there for 14 years, before starting to teach in Albert Lea in September of 1975.

When he started teaching in Albert Lea, both Southwest and Brookside were open as junior high schools. He directed seventh-, eighth-, and ninth-grade bands, then in 1981 moved to Albert Lea High School to direct both the high school orchestra and ninth-grade band.

Of leading the orchestra with his band background, Feuerhelm said he always had an interest in the classics. “With every band I directed we always did some transcription of one of the classics for orchestra,” he said.

He’d had some orchestra in his undergraduate days at Luther, and when the opportunity came to take the high school orchestra he took a few more courses at Minnesota State Univesity, Mankato, which refreshed what he’d already learned and added to it.

“It was a marvelous experience,” he said.

He directed the high school orchestra for 10 years, and spent the last three years of his teaching career at Southwest, directing both bands and the orchestra there. He retired in 1994.

Marching bands have changed a lot since Feuerhelm led them, he said. “They used to discourage maneuvers,” he said. “Now bands will stop and do a whole show.”

Pieces are much more elaborate today. “The caliber of musicianship of high school kids is astounding. It’s not just in ability, but in every phase,” he said.

Feuerhelm still does a fair amount of substitute teaching. He also stays busy judging at solo and ensemble contests. And he’s composed some music. He’s had five or six pieces published for church choirs, and is working on some ensemble pieces now. One of his works was recently reviewed in the American Choral Association Journal as an interesting new piece.

“How do you like that? I taught band and orchestra, but I compose for choirs,” he said with a chuckle.

Feuerhelm and his wife, Donn, had three children. Their oldest son died in a car accident while attending Luther College. Their daughter Stacey and her husband firefighter Scott Hanna live in Albert Lea. Stacey plays the flute. She is an emergency room nurse in Rochester. They have three children: Brieanna, a sophomore at Albert Lea High School; Paige, a fifth-grader at Sibley; and Parker, a third-grader at Sibley. The Feuerhelms’ youngest son, Nathan, a trumpeter, lives in Albert Lea and works in Rochester. He’s engaged to be married.