Lauren Lacy has been practicing to be in the band since she was about 3 years old, when she put a bucket on her head and played a recorder.
“I thought I was in the marching band,” she said.
By fifth grade, she was picking out her instrument — the clarinet, after her mother vetoed the tuba.
Lacy, 26, is the new band director at Bob and Betty Courtway Middle School in Conway. She was hired after longtime band director Sheila Brooks retired at the end of the last school year.
“I had to try it. I felt like this was my dream job,” Lacy said.
She joins her father, Robin Ratliff, in the district. He is the Conway High School band director and a former Heber Springs High School band director. Lacy grew up in Heber Springs and married her high school sweetheart and fellow bandmate, Matthew. They also played together in marching band in high school and at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, where he played trumpet. He’s an occupational therapist and still plays music.
Her dad was a band director before she was born. He and her mother, Carol-Jean Ratliff, met in the UCA band.
Lacy’s “very first memory” of music in her life was a Tupperware container in their home that was filled with instruments — “a tambourine, a harmonica; I think there was a drumstick in there.
“I thought I was in marching band. There’s a picture of me with a recorder and a bucket on my head when I was probably 3, pretending to be in band,” she said. Also, at about the same age, she took her recorder and marched in a parade in Heber Springs next to the high school band her father was directing.
When it came time to pick an instrument for the Heber Springs Middle School, “I got a really good sound on the tuba, but my mom talked me out of that,” she said. “I thought about the flute. I don’t know how I picked clarinet; maybe it picked me.”
Her father was influential in her musical career, as one would imagine.
“My dad’s kind of a quiet leader,” she said. Lacy said his advice for teaching band this year was, “‘You’ve just got to get them sounding good; they’ll love it if they sound good.’ He very much lets me be my own person.”
Ratliff said he’s had to balance being Lauren’s father and her teacher, and it’s not always easy.
“I remember when I heard Lauren produce her first tone on the clarinet,” he said. “I knew she was going to be a wonderful player. Now getting there was sometimes quite interesting. During her practice sessions at home, I would walk by, and she would ask me how she sounded. There were two possible answers — the daddy answer or the band-director answer.
“Sometimes I would answer with the daddy answer, ‘Sounds great, Sis,’ and she would want the band-director answer with a specific critique. Sometimes I would answer with the band-director
answer, and she would be brought to tears and case her instrument up, ending the practice session. In her ninth-grade year, she told me she wanted to make the Arkansas All-State Band as a sophomore and that she wanted me to help her achieve that goal. I turned to her and said, ‘Sis, I can tell you everything you need to do to make all-state, but there is one problem. I’m your dad. It’s time for another teacher.’”
Lacy started studying with Kelly Johnson at UCA that summer and worked with her all the way through graduate school, Ratliff said.
“Her solo, band and orchestra concerts while in college were so fun to listen to because I could hear her improving and developing into the wonderful musician she is now,” he said.
Lacy and her dad continued to partner for fun, though. When she was crowned Miss Heber Springs High School, she played a clarinet piece that her dad arranged, a medley of Disney songs.
When she gave up her crown, her father played with her.
“We played a little jazz combo,” Lacy said. “It was dorky, but it was fun.
“I knew I was going to play music in college; music paid me to go to school through my master’s.”
At UCA, she was a member of the orchestra, the UCA Marching Band, the wind ensemble and the Dixieland Jazz Band.
One of the memories that makes her laugh is when the jazz band played the Arkansas State Jazz Fest in Dardanelle.
“It’s a big, bang-up deal,” she said.
Matthew was driving her there, and he came to her apartment to pick her up.
“I said, ‘Oh, my gosh. I’ve got to go inside and get my music.’ She grabbed the folder of music, and off they went to Dardanelle.
“I got there and realized I didn’t have my clarinet,” she said, adding that she had sat her clarinet down in her apartment when she got her music folder.
She called a friend whose father was the Russellville band director. The friend was also a member of the UCA Jazz Band and was performing with Lacy at the event.
“I called him and said, “‘You’ve got to get me a clarinet! You’ve got to get me a clarinet!’”
His father got her one.
“It was horrible; it was like two put together,’” Lacy said.
She had solos in the performance, and the jazz-band director, Jackie Lamar, didn’t notice Lacy was playing with a borrowed subpar instrument. Two years later, Lamar found out, Lacy said, laughing.
During her third year of college, Lacy said, she had to do some “soul searching” to figure out if music was the right path.
She took chemistry, biology, English and a logic class.
“I thought maybe law school, maybe a pharmacist. It was just a little bit of rebellion” that made her look at other careers, she said.
But her passion for music never wavered.
It took Lacy five years to get her undergraduate degree, but that [third] year solidified that she wanted to do something in music.
“I did my student teaching, and literally, the first day, I thought, ‘I want to do this. Not only do I want to do this; I can’t do anything else.’”
She was student-teaching at Conway High School, Bob and Betty Courtway Middle School and the junior high.
A band director in the district retired, so she had to decide whether to apply for jobs or earn her master’s degree.
“The best decision I ever made was to get my master’s,” she said. “I grew as a musician those two years — it allowed me to be a better thinker.”
In the master’s program in music performance, “we thought really ethereally about music. The better you are at your instruments, the better you are at teaching,” she said.
She taught freshmen at UCA as a graduate assistant, and she was a long-term substitute teacher in the Conway School District the second year of her master’s; she was at Carl Stuart Middle School the first five weeks.
“It was the safest place to try new ideas for my master’s,” she said.
Her first professional job was last year teaching the all-strings Conway School District Orchestra.
“I thought, ‘Well, that might be fun; I’ll apply.’ For some reason, they picked me.”
She had a lot to learn.
“I don’t play strings; I play clarinet. I didn’t tell [my students] I played clarinet for a while,” she said. “The kids worked so hard for me.”
Lacy said the other orchestra teachers were patient with her.
“It really stretched me,” she said of the position. “The thing I learned the first day is, music is music is music. It worked out; it was a good challenge.”
She divided her time among four schools — Conway High School, Ruth Doyle and Carl Stuart middle schools and the junior high.
“It was a crazy schedule,” she said.
This year, she’s on the Bob and Betty Courtway staff as director of the beginning band, and her “big band” is the eighth-grade band at Conway Junior High School.
Beginning band, “that’s the best,” she said. Introducing the students to music makes her heart sing.
“They get their clarinet all put together, and they’re really proud. They get to play their first note, and the world opens up for them. It looks hard, but they can do it; you can do it. It’s awesome.”
Lacy, who was the drum major at Heber Springs High School, is also responsible for the flag line through marching season at Conway high and junior high schools. A UCA student teaches choreography to the flag lines, and Lacy oversees the practices.
If she had to pick between concert band and marching band, Lacy said, she’d pick concert band — with a caveat. Lacy said marching band creates a unique camaraderie, bringing together a group of people “working hard and sweating” together.
“I had built-in friends on my first day of school. I walked into the cafeteria and had someone to sit with,” she said.
As the new school year gets underway, Lacy said, her goals are “to work hard and teach kids music and teach kids how to be good people. I tell myself, ‘Progress, not perfection,’” and she said that will be her philosophy with her students.
“Lauren has always been a natural teacher,” Ratliff said. “She connects with kids and supports them in their learning. She is definitely in the right profession.”
She’s known that since she was 3.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.