Lori Tuter stands on a podium and taps her music stand in a packed classroom of some 40 energetic students.
“Let’s warm up,” she tells them.
The hubbub ceases, as instruments come up and musicians lock in on her.
Tuter leads them through a series of scales, then they launch into run-throughs of pieces they plan to play at the Homecoming football game later in the week.
The students have an air of assurance and while the scene might appear chaotic to an outsider, as loud volume ricochets off the walls of the packed room, there’s no question that they are serious about what they’re doing.
Everything is different than it was a few years ago, as the band program emerged from COVID in tatters. When Tuter took the reins in the fall of 2023, after the departure of her predecessor, Elijah Heide to a job closer to his home in Independence, the wind ensemble – the largest of the groups she leads, numbered 16. This year there are 42.
“I’m just so thankful to be back in music,” Tuter said. “It’s just so much fun, sort of my first love and my last love.”
She leads two junior high bands – beginners and advanced, along with a jazz band and a small percussion ensemble that she started this year. Then there is the sixth-grade band she started soon after taking over the program. That numbers nearly 40 students now.
Students enter the band room at nearly every class break to hang out, jam or practice.
“We had 19 kids in here at lunch, playing instruments, getting a rock band going, playing,” she said. “That’s really fun. It’s a lot like a club. We have alums coming back all the time. There are probably four or five or six alumni who come back and play with us.”
Husky Experience
The Huskies’ program appears to be well on its way to her stated goal of bringing Sweet Home’s band back to where it was when she was a Husky, playing the clarinet in the mid-1980s.
Tuter, who started band as a sixth-grader at Foster, said she had three different band directors in high school. Longtime director Lee Jones had just left when she entered as a freshman, but she said he had left a legacy that produced continued success for several years, resulting in awards for jazz and marching band that still hang in the high school auditorium.
“We did it big,” she said. “We had, I think we had about 60 people in the band, and we did marching, we did drill, we did the designs and everything, yeah, and we competed at OSU and U of O each year.”
Tuter liked music so much, she said, that she decided to pursue it at the University of Oregon.
“I didn’t want to stop playing, right? So what are your options? So I went to college to become a music teacher.”
She started at Central Linn High School, then moved to Prineville, where she taught high school and middle school band, before switching to elementary music, which she taught for 10 years.
In 2009, when recession cutbacks forced school districts to eliminate elementary music programs, she got certified to teach English.
“I am a survivor, so I regrouped and I taught English for 14 years.”
She returned to the Willamette Valley in 2015, first to Stayton and then returning to Sweet Home.
Big Challenges
When the opportunity to switch back to band presented itself, she said, she grabbed it, but she knew it was going to be a challenge.
“I would say 95% of the instruments were damaged, most beyond repair,” she said. “I had two bass clarinets repaired that first year and each was $1,000 just to repair it, so that was $2,000 right off the top.
Tuter said district Supt. Terry Martin and high school Principal Ralph Brown have been “incredibly supportive, matching donations she’s received from the public to get the program back on its feet.
Plus, band members held two car washes during the summer and sold chocolates last year, fundraising efforts that will continue, she said.
The Sweet Home Elks recently donated $7,500 to the program and Tuter said O’Reilly’s has been supportive in allowing the band to use its parking lot and providing water for the car washes.
“I’m just really thankful for both,” she said.
the high school Wind Ensemble
during a recent rehearsal.
Making Progress
It’s paying off.
For the first time in at least a quarter century, the band actually marched last spring during May Week, leading students down Long Street to Husky Field for their May Week Track Meet.
The band also competed at last year’s District Festival, where bands can qualify for the state competition if they score high enough with judges.
“With the Wind Ensemble we took fourth place and we were only a couple of points behind third place,” Tuter said. “My goal for the Wind Ensemble is top three. My goal is improving our skills enough that we perform within placing and, similarly for Jazz Band, go to state.”
She also wants to see more marching. The band, including some alums, led the football team to the stadium on Sept. 19 and then marched onto the field at halftime to perform, to the delight of the crowd.
The marching goals were slowed a bit during the final weeks of school last spring when Tuter accidentally stepped backward off the stage in the auditorium as the bands held their dress rehearsal for their final concert of the year, which was scheduled for the next day.
Tuter had to undergo surgery to repair a severely broken ankle, she said, and there was talk of canceling the performance, but high school band members insisted that their show must go on.
After her surgery, Tuter said, “I got home and I’d had a nerve block, so I was able to attend their concert and they just managed it beautifully.”
“That was a testament to their love of music and their love of me, that the show went on and they really wanted to present that. It was super cool. I cried through most of the concert.”
She said she doesn’t plan to actually attempt drill – marching in the precise choreography, movement, and formation changes that larger programs do.
“It’s so much work, so many hours outside, outside of school. I have an 8-year-old, but parades, formation marching, we’re good.
“When the band leads the football team across (to the stadium), I’m in my Camry, going ahead, windows down, and watching and making sure everybody’s doing what they should.”
Public Attention
The halftime appearance on Sept. 19 was a head-turner for some in the stands, but the band has already gotten notice.
“We get invites to play gigs,” Tuter said, noting that her kids played at the Senior Center last year and are invited back this year, as well as at Wiley Creek Community and the Oregon Veterans Home in Lebanon.
“We’re getting invitations to play some events. It might be cool to perform at like, maybe, the Chamber of Commerce dinner, the seniors’ Christmas Party.
“I’m super patriotic, so those kinds of things are really important to me, and I’m hoping to just continue that.”
during a recent rehearsal. Tuter,
a former Sweet Home band
musician herself, returned to the
school and took over the direction
two years ago, during which time
the numbers have swelled.
Challenges Remain
There are still plenty of challenges: “We still have quite a few repairs that are needed and I have most of the band instruments that we own checked out to middle school/junior high and high school kids.”
The shortage of school instruments forces parents to rent instruments for their kids, she said.
Tuter said donations from the community have helped – both instruments and money.
“We have quite a few kids in the elementary band. We are desperate for trombones.”
About significant number of her Wind Ensemble members are brand new to high school band.
“A couple of them played, maybe, a few years ago and are coming back in, but a lot of them have never done music before,” she said. “They’re happy to learn to read it, to play it, but it’s a heavy learning curve.
“But we have such a strong leadership within the band, section leaders and whatnot, they take care of their people and they might take them out of (practice) for 10 or 15 minutes into a practice room.”
A lot of the newbies also show up at lunch and during her prep period for extra practice, she said.
The leadership within the band is evidenced by students who are planning to move on to college and perform there.
Alumni who want to help train less experienced musicians are welcome, Tuter said.
“Alumni who’d like to perform with the band, as mentors for younger players and just having fun playing, we’d love that.”
She can be contacted at
Instruments still need to be repaired and she is working on acquiring some new ones that will be more appropriate for use in the stadium and marching.
“One of the exciting things is, two years ago, we were taking concert instruments to the football stadium. We had concert snare drums on a concert snare stand – very dangerous and just not the right sound or anything.
“And so with the help of the school district, and then some fundraising and some donations, we now have marching equipment – two marching bass drums, two marching snares, crash cymbals.
“So we added in that, and this year we started marching.
“The football coaches requested us to march in front of the team as they march over there and it’s really been fun. We start behind the school, by the gym and we march in and the boys are right behind us. It’s really cool. We just get some energy going right from the start.”