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The music man...
After countless rehearsals and hundreds of performances, it all came down to one final concert. For Blake Olmstead, it became his swan song -- the end of a career spanning more than a quarter of a century.
On Monday evening, he stood in front of the Mountain Home High School choir and led them one last time officially as their conductor.
For Olmstead, teaching students to sing over the past 26 years was never really a job. It was a calling of sorts that fueled his lifelong passion for music.
Reluctant to stand in the limelight, he paused in recent days to look back on a career that became an extension of his life. Growing up in a family of musicians -- his mother sang in a choir and his grandmother played trumpet -- he picked up his first musical instrument when he was just eight years old.
"It's what my parents bought me," he said regarding his first choice of instrument.
A military veteran, the Air Force brought him to Mountain Home in 1976 where he remained until he finished his four-year commitment. But music remained a key part of his military lifestyle. In his free time, he continued to play trumpet for a local rock 'n' roll band and went on to become their lead singer.
"It just kind of went from there," Olmstead said regarding the roots of his musical career. "I realized that music was the one thing -- the one job -- where I never called in sick."
Originally, though, his career track started on a different note. For three years, he majored in business in college. But he still wanted to sing and took vocal lessons at Boise State University on top of his regular class load.
"It was just something that I didn't mind getting up and doing every day," Olmstead said regarding his love of singing. It was that passion -- and the encouragement of a voice teacher -- that made him change his college major to music education.
While not an extremely difficult or cumbersome degree choice, "you were always busy," he said. The following semesters included plenty of one-credit classes that improved his proficiency on a number of musical instruments, including the piano and guitar.
With a degree in hand, Olmstead attended a career fair that led to an offer to teach music in Great Falls, Mont., with another job offer in Sun Valley.
"(But) when I got back to Mountain Home, I heard there was a music opening here, so I applied for that," he said.
It began a teaching career that lasted 26 years. He spent the first four of them introducing the basics of music to students at West Elementary School. "I loved it (but) it was tiring working with little kids," he admitted.
In 1990, he received an offer to lead the high school's choir program. It wasn't a decision he took lightly.
"I liked teaching elementary enough that I really had to think about it," Olmstead said regarding the offer to join the high school. "But I realized that I wanted to keep growing (musically), and the high school was the place to do that."
Despite being a new high school teacher, the transition from elementary to high school music was actually pretty easy, he added.
"I was lucky because there were some kids that I had in sixth grade (from West) that were now in tenth grade, so I wasn't an unknown face in the hall for a lot of students," he said.
Having that rapport helped him make that transition from teaching basic to advanced music lessons. In addition in changes to their musical abilities, he also saw motivated students ready to accept the challenges associated with a high school-level choir program.
"You get students who want to be there for all the right reasons who want to make good music together," he said.
Making that good music over the years led Mountain Home to a number of awards and accolades over the years. Olmstead admits he's lost count on the number of achievements his choirs have earned.
This year alone, each of his six high school and one junior high school choirs earned superior ratings during their annual festivals. Earning that top rank never comes easy, but it means "we represent our community well," Olmstead said.
With each award, he's quick to credit his students "who care about greatness." For Olmstead, it's always been a team effort, he said. While he might pick the music for each performance, ultimately it's up to these teens to take these compositions and make them extraordinary. "They know how to get the most of a song" and what makes them so great, he said.
A self-described Beatles fan with an extensive collection of Fab Four memorabilia, Olmstead admits that music remains a powerful force in people's lives, regardless if they've been in a band or choir.
"(Music) takes you right back to an occasion where you heard it for the first time," he said. "It definitely ties events and memories together."
But with music such an important part of his life, Olmstead said it's tough coming to terms with leaving part of it behind.
"The last concert will be challenging," Olmstead admitted. "You're with kids you love being with, and you're the school family as well. It's hard not being emotional (because) the songs bring out the emotion in you."