Central Baptist College is restarting its band program. All it needs is instruments. And music. And students.
The Conway college has taken the first step in the process by hiring Tim Gunter, former director of athletic bands at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.
Gary McAllister, vice president for academic affairs at CBC, said Gunter is being given “free rein” to create the program.
“We call him director of bands, but there are no bands right now. We’re just going to let him develop that program,” McAllister said.
Gunter, 60, moved to Conway last week from Camden, where he has been pastor of worship and discipleship at First Baptist Church since 2012.
“There are no chairs, no band hall, no nothing. We’re moving out on faith here,” Gunter said. “That’s part of the challenge; it’s awesome.”
McAllister said CBC had a band with a part-time director about five years ago, but it was “more like an ensemble.” It had at most 25 members at its height, but that number had dwindled to about 15 when the program ended, he said.
“It was the fact that it was a part-time position … that hampered recruiting for the band. Just support for the program, instruments and things, space, facilities — we just weren’t ready to support that kind of a program,” McAllister said.
“We’ve had quite a bit of interest recently [in band], but we’ve had to tell them we don’t have a program,” he said.
Restarting the band program was a matter of timing, he said.
“It’s kind of a strange sort of thing. I just began to think, have some ideas, after some of the performances and things our choral department had been doing that we were really on solid ground, and maybe it was time to think about doing instrumental music,” McAllister said.
He said Jim Turner, co-chairman of the CBC Fine Arts Department “just happened to meet Tim Gunter at a conference.” McAllister said the music director at his church in Conway knew Gunter, too.
“Those things kind of fell together,” McAllister said.
Gunter said getting back into teaching never crossed his mind until he was contacted about the CBC position.
“I was called to the ministry five years ago, and that’s why I left teaching,” Gunter said. “It was a hard decision, because I’d taught 30 years. I love being with kids. I love teaching music; that’s what I do.”
McAllister said he’s excited about hiring Gunter because of his “incredible” experience.
Gunter, a native of Hope, received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. He was director of athletic bands at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville for 13 years and was a graduate assistant for two years before that, he said.
Gunter also served as associate director of bands at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, for two years after he left Fayetteville.
“Loved it; New York City is a great place,” he said. He has directed bands throughout Arkansas, as well as at Highland Park High School in Dallas, Texas.
Gunter said he was teaching at Highland Park, “having a great time,” but he felt the Lord was calling him to do something else.
A friend of Gunter’s, the worship pastor at International Baptist Church in Singapore, asked Gunter to come help him with a music ministry for a year.
Gunter agreed, and spent from January 2011 through December that year in Singapore. He said he returned and started praying and applying for jobs. “I said, ‘OK, Lord, here I am. What’s next?’” That’s when Gunter said that “out of the blue,” he got a call from the pastor in Camden about an interim position that became full time at the church in Camden. It was a “great fit,” Gunter said.
Gunter said he realized “there are lots of kinds of ministry in the world,” and the CBC job is a good fit, too. He said teaching at a private Christian college, “you can mention your faith” and not worry about being fired for it.
“I felt the Lord calling me to come to Conway. Am I excited about teaching again? Absolutely,” he said. Gunter will be an associate professor of
music at CBC.
McAllister said CBC wants to build “a very strong” band program. He envisions CBC eventually having a “large orchestra” and a band to take to athletic events.
The band program will be housed in the Cooper Complex in the Fine Arts Department.
“They’ll have a dedicated space for their instruments,” he said. Burgess Auditorium is newly renovated, “so that’s where they will practice and perform,” McAllister said.
The goal is to have 30 band students by fall.
Gunter will start recruiting, and with 525 students on campus, “there has to be some students who were in their high school band,” he said.
“If it does work and it’s a success, it’s not Tim doing it; it’s the Lord doing it,” Gunter said. “I’m leaning on him for everything.”
McAllister said the spring semester will be spent “procuring the instruments, getting the facility ready, buying the music. From there, we’ll just kind of follow [Gunter’s] lead.”
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.