Missing Mr. Mo: The Life and Times of Jon Montgomery

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[Long before he was "Mr. Mo", Jon Montgomery and I grew up together in the old neighborhood on North Washington Street, about two blocks south of the hospital.

His sister gave me my first "push" on my two-wheel Schwinn bike. We built castles in the covered sandbox my grandmother had given me (until I started throwing wet sand balls at the back screens on the house). We threw "cracker balls" on the Fourth of July and lamented an occasional dog bite.

It was a great childhood in that old neighborhood. But, it certainly pales by what Jon Montgomery became--and is--after retiring from 33 and a half years in music education.

We will miss the man thousands of music students affectionately call "Mr. Mo."

But, he's still around, playing catch-up on a life in many ways he and wife Jane put on hold. The couple just got back from visiting daughter Holly in Germany. Growing up he had an interest in model railroading and hopes to get that hobby back on track as he has time.

Longtime Du Quoin High School music director Jacqueline Minton made a special trip to Du Quoin three weeks ago to hear Jon's last spring concert held in Keyes City Park. She looked great and the reunion begs reminiscing about lives well lived in music.

Jon was hired in January 1978 "during the biggest snow we had", having served two years as music director in Albion and five years in Louisville, Ill. (near Flora).

Vern Rager had been Du Quoin's band director followed by the short-lived tenure of music director Jeff Cox, who followed. School administrator Art McCormick had suggested to Dr. Freddie Banks that Jon be hired by the district. Jon came back to Du Quoin the same day for an interview and was hired.

"I had talked to (former DTHS music director and SIU music professor) Mel Seiner about this job and he gave me a lot of things to think about.

Jon stepped back into the band room at the J.B. Ward Jr. High and told himself, "This smells like MY?band room." He remembers learning band for one year under then director Vern Rager, for many the gold standard in junior high music.

"I think I had done all I could do in Louisville. I wanted to go farther (with the curriculum) and they didn't," he remembers.

Jon said he felt like he had some big shoes to fill at the time. "Jeff Cox had taken the Du Quoin band to the Smoky Mountain Music Festival and they got a trophy," he said.

"But, when I came to Du Quoin the band got a first superior at contest," he remembers and that silenced skeptics.

"One of the fun things was the fact that I had a lot of kids at the First Baptist Church who were in my band. The first bunch was a nice mix," he said.

He said the most arduous aspect of teaching music is the fact that "a lot of parents set up their kids to fail in music. They expect a lot during the first year and it all takes time," he said.

"I never gave up on anyone," he said.

"Some students said they couldn't do it (music). But, they did it," he said.

And many of them did it very well--Lori Crain, Becky Juhl, Jamie Haner, Karen Henderson and Michelle Jackson just to name a few.

Jon's career holds some great memories. His bands cut their own music albums over a period of three years. Those are treasures for his students. "We played at Six Flags. The jazz band played at the Du Quoin State Fair harness races. We played the National Anthem." How you play that and how people remember how you played it is the acid test for any school band. His bands played for governors, for teacher institutes, at ribbon cuttings and, of course, for parents.

His love of Du Quoin and its people is epic. "I talked so much about Du Quoin when I was away from here that some of the band teachers tried to pick me up and take me to the post office," he remembers.

"We're going to mail you back to Du Quoin," he said.

Music is a frustration. You want to hit the notes perfectly. He remembers one "bad day" and still laughs at a student telling him to "Just let it out Mr. Mo! Just let it ALL out!" the student told him.

He calls being a band director "the only true dictatorship that's legal." For band directors, "It's their way or the highway."

Over the years, music directors statewide have relied on "Mr. Mo" for music competition help and computer software to move contests along faster. But, he holds dear the best of music--things like Mel Seiner, Jacqueline Minton and A.T. Atwood's historic "Egyptian Music Camp" held for over three decades on the grounds of the Du Quoin State Fair.

Those camps were the best of youth music, but became a dinosaur only because "universities are better set up to hold them, now."

Many of his keepsakes over the decades will be posted on his personal Web site, and he will add to it as he has time.

Jon has a great love of the Big Band Sounds and of the music that is the American landscape.

And, he certainly thanks the students and their parents who allowed him for more than 33 years to make it his life.

There wasn't a sour note anywhere along the way. Thanks neighbor!