Southview’s Claude Coller – June 6, 1971

For all you Southview High School Alumni, here’s a real treat.

It’s a profile of Claude Coller, the longtime, well-respected high school band director at Southview. The story is from the very beginning of his Lorain City Schools music career, and appeared in the Journal on June 6, 1971.

It was written by Bill Scrivo as one of his popular "Bill Scrivo’s People” features.

And for those of us who are familiar with Mr. Coller only by name, but never had the opportunity to meet him, it’s a chance to get to know him better. He was always a little intimidating to me when I saw him conducting his band at a football game or Band-O-Rama. It’s hard to believe he was only in his 20’s at that time!

****

Claude Coller, A Bandsman on the Way Up

By Bill Scrivo

IF YOU MET Claude Coller on the street and had to guess what his profession was, you’d probably think he was a bandsman.

BIG, BURLY with a drooping mustache, you can just see Claude strutting along in front of the band, cap visor touching his eyebrows, tight military collar snug around his neck, oompahing in time with the tuba.

You know what? That’s what Claude Coller is. A bandsman. In fact, he’s the instrumental music director for Lorain’s spanking new Southview High. The John Phillip Sousa of E. 42nd Street.

Claude Coller, only 23, is in his first big assignment after college, and enjoying it thoroughly. Born in Washington D.C., he’s the capital’s gift to Southview.

“It’s great teaching in a new school,” says Claude. “You have a chance to do things that no one else has done.

“For instance, we just wrote the Alma Mater this year. We put on the first band shows.

“I can do things my own way,” he continues. “I don’t have to be compared to anybody.”

CLAUDE COLLER didn’t come by that director’s baton and that responsibility easily. He’s the oldest of nine children (he has four brothers and four sisters). His dad is a turbine operator at the Illuminiating Company in Avon Lake. And he’s a man dedicated to education for his children.

Claude came to Lorain with his family in “1951 or 1952.” He graduated from Lorain High School and then studied music at little Murray State University in Southern Kentucky.

“I was accepted at Ohio State and Baldwin - Wallace, but I needed government assistance and scholarships and I got them from Murray State,” recalls Claude.

Claude has played the trumpet since he was in the 4th grade. He was in the school bands and orchestras as he moved through the grades.

THE TURNING POINT came for him between his junior and senior years in high school.

“I went to all-Ohio boys’ band,” he says. “I just enjoyed it so much I decided that’s what I wanted to do with my life.”

After graduation from Murray State, he applied for a job in Michigan. Then he heard that there was an opening back home in Lorain.

“I like the people here,” he says. “I decided I would come back.”

It was the fall of 1969 and Claude’s first assignment was at Longfellow Junior High School and the elementary schools on the East Side of Lorain.

He moved to Southview at the beginning of the 1970-71 school year.

Fore a man of 23, Claude’s responsibilities are weighty. He has orchestra the first period of every morning. Then he teaches instrumental music at either Palm or Homewood schools. Then comes lunch and teaching in the afternoon for about an hour. Then back to Southview for a conference period at 2 p.m. Band occupies the hour from 3 to 4 p.m.

“I teach individual lessons before and after school,” says Claude. That accounts for a very busy day.

What does he like most?

“Of all the things I do, I enjoy marching band the best,” says Claude. He likes “all of music,” and likes to play “some of the classical things” himself. His main instrument is trumpet, but he can play and teaches all the band instruments.

He writes a little music himself, but most of his time is spent “arranging things for the band and orchestra.”

Claude was a little apprehensive when he first took over the orchestra.

“We had a little 12 piece orchestra and I was a little afraid to work with them,” he says. “I didn’t know what you could do with 12 people.

“But it turned out they were pretty fine musicians and they wound up playing more than the Concert Band.

“Because the group was small, they were easier to work with. I could devote more time to each child.

Claude Coller knows that the biggest part of his job is gaining the trust of his students.

“Most students don’t really trust teachers,” he says. “And I guess I didn’t either.”

But he’s aware of the problem and he works at it. From the way his students look at him and the way his bands and orchestra sounds, he has bridged the gap between teacher and pupil.

Right now, his life is wrapped up around teaching. He likes to read, novels especially, and in the fall “I toss the football around a little.”

What about girls and marriage in the plans of a bright young man of 23?

That word “bright” is a key word.

“I watched a lot of my friends who married last year when they were first-year teachers,” he says. “Trying to make a go of it was a real struggle.

“I’d like to wait until I have things well established and be able to devote time to a wife – and so on.”

Claude Coller is a big, gentle man, who doesn’t like to hurt anyone. He started out feeling he wanted to advance to a teaching job in college. Now he finds out that his job at Southview is “what I’ve always wanted.”

That’s Claude Coller. A young man made of the stuff that good bandsmen are made of. Strike up the band! There’ll be no "trouble in River City” as long as Claude Coller’s around to keep the kids out of the poolroom by sticking a trumpet in their hands.