Biography of Clarence Sawhill

CHAPTER III - The Norton Years

Clarence Sawhill began his career as a music education in 1929 as the instrumental music instructor at Norton, Kansas. Norton was a farming community in northwestern Kansas. The rural Kansas town had a population of 2,000 in 1930, and boasted itself with the town motto of the "biggest little town in the west.”

Norton was fairly sophisticated for a small western town, claiming an opera house (theater) and four newspapers by 1907. There were 360 students in attendance during the 1930-1931 school term. Sawhill relates that, "Wyndell Nystrom was the principal of the high school program in 1929, and he was very supportive of the music program. The town was very excited about the band.”

Hjalmar Wetterstrom recommended the position in Norton to Sawhill. It was an excellent opportunity for a beginning teacher, since it was an all instrumental teaching position, a rarity in that era of public school music.

Sawhill was excited about the chance to teach in Norton. He commented that, "the people were wonderful. I remember walking up a hill from the hotel to the school and the air was so fresh, I thought if I could just get this job it would be just what I wanted."

After being offered and accepting the position of instrumental music director at the Norton Community High School, he began the task of building a quality music program in rural Kansas.

He recruited new students to participate in the program, increased the number of private lessons, and performed at every possible event. The band played at sporting events and parades.

Photo: Sawhill leading the Norton Community High School Band

Sawhill states that, "I played enough trumpet to get the band through the football season that first year." The Norton Nugget, the school newspaper, of November 25, 1931, reports, "Norton Community High School Band goes to Kansas City; there were thirteen bands in the parade. Before the main program started, each band was to put on a strut. Norton turned corners and did a countermarch, and they won praise as their lines were perfect and everyone was in step."

Sawhill taught all the instrumental music in the Norton schools which included both the band and the orchestra programs. He also taught private lessons that helped finance the music program. Sawhill accepted the challenge and was extremely interested in each student's progress. He was also very interested in continuing his personal growth by studying privately himself on all the instruments.

He would return to Lindsborg for frequent visits and lessons with his former teachers at Bethany College. Sawhill was obsessed with the desire to know everything about the performace practices of all the instruments, a trait that would remain with him throughout his career. Marie Sawhill states, "he had to learn every screw on the instruments in order that he could understand how it would play."

Wanting to further his musical training, Sawhill spent the summer of 1931 studying with a variety of teachers. He took classes at the Sherwood Music College in Chicago where he studied conducting with Victor Grabel. He also studied privately with several members of the Chicago Symphony.

Marie Sawhill relates, "It was the beginning of the great depression and money was scarce. We borrowed money from every source possible so Clarence could take lessons. Many of the Symphony players would teach for almost nothing since they were having such hard times.” Sawhill states, that some of the professionals would even come to their apartment and teach him two or three hours for $2.50 and a meal.

During Sawhill's four years at Norton, he developed the Norton Band and Orchestra into one of the best programs in Kansas. The band was extremely active, competing each year in festivals and contests. By 1931, Sawhill had developed the Norton Band into an outstanding performing ensemble. The Norton Nugget reported, "The largest band in the history of Norton Community High School, a fifty-five piece organization will appear in a free concert.”

In the spring of 1931, the Sawhills attended the National Band Contest that was held in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The trip was made with Harold Palmer, a student at Fort Hays State, and a close friend of Sawhill's. This was the last year of the great national contest that changed the following year into regional events. This also marked one of the last appearances of John Philip Sousa, who served as a judge and guest conductor for the massed band performance held in Skelly Stadium in Tulsa, Oklahorna.

Performing at the contest were many of the outstanding bands in the country, including the Hobart, Indiana High School Band, directed by William D. Revelli, who would later become Director of Bands at the University of Michigan. The performance of the Hobart Band so impressed Sawhill that it was an inspiration for his own musical career. "I knew I was on the right track because my band wasn't as good as that (Hobart), but the concept was there.”

By 1931, he had approximately fifty members in the high school band and an active group of thirty musicians in the grade school band. The band was very popular in the community and Norton was very proud of its program. In the spring contest of 1933, Sawhill was judged by his friend and former teacher, Roy L. Underwood. The contest was at Hays, Kansas and again Norton was outstanding in its performance.

Underwood had just returned from New York, and was teaching piano at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. Much impressed with his former pupil, upon his return to Lawrence, he recommended Sawhill to Neil N. Wherry, principal of the Lawrence Memorial High School, who was in the midst of a search for a band and orchestra director. Wherry, who had been the superintendent at Holton while Sawhill was a student there, knew of Sawhill's work and encouraged him to take the job.

Although Sawhill felt a great sense of satisfaction in the Norton program, he felt that a move would be good at that time. This was the beginning of the great dust storms of the 1930's and the western part of Kansas was beginning to suffer under their strain. So in the fall of 1933, Clarence Sawhill became the director of bands and orchestras at Liberty Memorial High School in Lawrence, Kansas.

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