The house lights were dim, the music loud and stage full for nearly three hours at Carver High School Saturday afternoon – a fitting tribute to the man who dedicated nearly 30 years to the school’s music programs.
Rudolph V. Boone, Sr. was one of three former “Big Four” band directors honored Saturday. Together, Boone, Bernard T. Foy and Harry Wheeler served nearly 100 years at Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools four formerly all-black high schools. The band rooms at the three schools still in use – Carver High School, Paisley IB Magnet School and Atkins High School (now Winston-Salem Preparatory Academy) – were recently named for their longtime former directors.
“This is the highest honor I believe I could get,” Boone, 87, said Saturday as a long line of friends, family and former students waited for a handshakes and hugs.
The honor, long overdue in the minds of many former students, was granted by the Board of Education after a campaign by Beverly Williams, an Anderson High School graduate, member of the Big Four Alumni Association and Boone’s neighbor. Anderson, the fourth of the former all-black high schools, is no longer in operation.
“To see Mr. Boone on the day they put the letters on the building, made it all worthwhile,” Williams said.
Boone, 87, is the only band director honored Saturday who is still living. Foy was the band director at Paisley and served the school system in various roles for 38 years before his passing in 1985. Wheeler taught in the school system for 30 years, many of which were at Atkins High School.
“Imagine the flat notes they had to endure, all the missed beats from budding percussionists…” Williams said, welcoming a crowd of more than 100 family members, friends and former students. “Then it all emerged through beautiful harmonies.”
All three of the men were remembered not only for their many years of service, but also for the success of their programs. Especially during the years of segregation, the bands were a source of community pride and their directors served as pillars of their communities and role models for their many students said Charles Burns, a 1969 Carver graduate.
“What Mr. Boone meant to me, he modeled what it meant to be a man who is responsible, caring, honest and trustworthy,” Burns said. “He didn’t talk about it, but it was the way he lived his life and continues to live his life.”
Whether or not students took to music, time under the tutelage of Boone, Foy or Wheeler turned students into better people said George Johnson, president of the Atkins High School Alumni Association and student of Wheeler’s.
“Everyone looked forward to going to band practice,” Johnson said. “It impacted our lives in a great way.
“They were just like heroes in our schools.”
Dozens of former students turned out. Gary Hastings, whose band New South Brass, entertained the crowd Saturday, got his start under Boone. It was a thrill, Hastings said, to get to play for him again all these years later.
“The guy’s had such an influence in my life,” Hastings said. “He was an unbelievable teacher.”
Originally posted on the Winston-Salem Journal
