He parlayed his passion for music into a labor of love.

After all these years, Dave Carroll is hearing the sweet sound of retirement.

Carroll has retired after 36 years as a professional music educator, including the past 27 as band director in the Northern Lehigh School District.

Love of music

A native of Hanover, Carroll said he knew from an early age that music was his calling.

“I knew what I wanted to do with my life since I was in eighth grade,” Carroll said. “When I was in junior high school, my band director, George Rutledge, had a tremendous program,” Carroll said. “I loved to make music and was inspired by him.”

Carroll said Rutledge served in the United States Air Force Band and was an original member of the Singing Sergeants. He, along with Carroll’s orchestra director, Robert Shreffler, who was also an Air Force veteran, “set a strong foundation of musical learning and helped ignite in me a passion for music performance and music education. My high school music experience at Hanover High School under the director Charles Brodie and Sandy Broad continued to fuel my passion for music education.”

Starting out

Carroll began his teaching career in 1987 as a music teacher and high school band director at Sun Valley High School in the Penn-Delco School District in Delaware County.

He said he left that position after five years to pursue graduate studies while substituting and teaching several music sabbaticals in the Hanover Public School District, which included choir, orchestra and band.

The final sabbatical coverage was as Hanover’s high school marching band director in the fall of 1996, before he accepted his current position at the Northern Lehigh School District.

Carroll started working as a music teacher and high school/middle school band director for Northern Lehigh in July 1997.

Accolades

During his tenure at Northern Lehigh, the marching band has performed four times in Orlando Florida at Disney World’s Magic Kingdom. (1999, 2003, 2007 and 2011).

In addition, the band program during his time has had the opportunity to host the Lehigh County Honors Band festival concert on three occasions, 2003, 2013 and 2023.

It has also hosted a number of jazz festivals and marching band festivals including the Tournament of Bands Region 2 Championships in 2013, 2021, 2022 and 2023.

The Marching Band program has won nine Tournament of Bands Region 2 Championships, and has finished in the top five at the Atlantic Coast Championships eight times.

“I have also had the privilege of directing our marching band at 300 Northern Lehigh Football Games in 27 seasons,” Carroll said. “This includes multiple league and district football championships and a trip to Hershey in 2003. Our band program has enjoyed tremendous support from our great football program led by head coaches Jim Tkach and Joe Tout.”

Carroll shared his greatest accomplishments.

“I am humbled to have had the opportunity to lead the band program at Northern Lehigh for almost three decades. In that time, school programs, often applied arts music programs such as band, have had to navigate unanticipated challenges, such as the pandemic,” he said.

“I am thankful that we were able to sustain our music programs at Northern Lehigh while providing opportunities for educational and performance excellence along the way. With the help of many talented and dedicated people, these vitally important educational programs were able to thrive in meeting the needs of our students while adapting to and overcoming these challenges.”

Carroll said he’s enjoyed the support of many talented and dedicated people in his time at Northern Lehigh.

“I have to say thank you to my primary marching band staff members; Jim Corle, Kim Corle, Randy Utsch, Steve Jonkman, Rebecca Steigerwalt and Scott Wolfinger,” he said. “I would also say how blessed I feel to work with such dedicated, hardworking, and innovative educators at Northern Lehigh during my tenure who have supported me as a teacher and director.”

He thanked the Northern Lehigh superintendent and high school principal.

“We are fortunate to have a superintendent who supports arts in education,” he said. “Dr. Matthew Link is a great supporter of music education in our schools and continues to forge an educational environment that allows the applied arts to be accessible to all students in the district.

“I would also like to thank my principal David Hauser, who leads a tremendous team of educators and who has created a positive learning environment for young people in the Northern Lehigh Middle School. Under his leadership the Northern Lehigh Middle School has been awarded for its support of students and designated as a school of distinction.

“Lastly, I would like to say to all of my former students, their families, and the Northern Lehigh Band Boosters, thank you for all of the memories. I will always love my Northern Lehigh Band family.”

Moving forward

Carroll assured he is leaving the music program in good hands.

“We, like many school music programs, are in the process of building back to a solid program that is robust and properly supported at all levels,” he said. “I am excited about the future of Arts Education at Northern Lehigh.”

Carroll said the district has hired his successor, Mikayla Vangelo, a Lehigh Valley native.

“I have been working with her this spring through the transition process of becoming Northern Lehigh’s next high school/middle school band director,” he said.

“She is absolutely tremendous and I look forward to the next chapter of our program’s history.”