Ferdinand Cooper didn’t walk into a band room his first day at Weldon High School three years ago.

He walked into an agriculture classroom. “I looked into the instrument storage room and the instruments were torn up. We may have had four or five working instruments.”

While the band has always been a part of the school, interest waned. “Two students could actually play,” he said in a recent interview.

Looking inside the band room now, there is order. Uniforms are stored in garment bags and hats are stored in special boxes.

The trophies the band won this year.

The most striking thing about the band room may be the table with the trophies, gleaming trophies won this year from Cooper’s direction.

Cooper’s direction of the band has led him to be named North Central Region Teacher of the Year and he now is up for state teacher of the year, a decision that will be made in the spring.

“With me, I never put the spotlight on myself,” Cooper said. “I realized early you can never do it by yourself.”

For Cooper the honor is for the school and a school he said often gets a bad rap. “Weldon City Schools often get put in a bad light. I want to change that. I want people to see the teachers at Weldon are some of the best teachers.”

While interest in the band program at Weldon lagged there were still those who wanted a revival. “It was ground zero. You had to teach them how to play.”

It took Cooper’s love of music to make it infectious for the students. “I’m excited about music. I tell them to share their enthusiasm.”

With that core, the band has now become one of the best in the state, capturing a fourth place for its class in state competition.

Cooper could have easily moved in another career direction, however. “I started out not liking music,” he said. “My dad was a band director in South Carolina for 35 years. I was more into sports.”

In high school he began to enjoy music more and played the trumpet.

Then, his band director gave a him challenge during a summer band camp. “He let me run half of the band camp.”

When Cooper went to college at Livingstone College, he received his undergraduate degree in music.

It is important for schools to have bands, Cooper said. “You have to have arts. Exposure to the arts makes you a more rounded person.”

The new emphasis on the band is part of an attitude in this area where the band is just as important as the football team they support. “Here, it’s on a whole other level,” Cooper said. “You find the parents and kids more involved with the bands just as much as the football rivalry.”

This year, Cooper and the Quiet Storm, as the band has long been known, tested just what they could do, foregoing the high stepping and dancing for something different. “This year we stepped out of the box. This year we did an all gospel show. At every competition we got a standing ovation. There was no dancing. It was a very relaxed show. It went over well and we progressed the whole year.”

He told the students, “If you keep buying into it, you can sell it.”

Band, Cooper said, is not just about music. It’s about life. “I teach them time management, how to study. I want them to be successful. They have to show commitment. If you want to be good at it you have to work at it.”

Caron Williams, a junior trumpeter in the band, believes in what Cooper is doing. “He’s a great man. He takes bad mistakes and turns them into good things.”

Aaliyah Barber, a junior, agrees. “The first year he was like a father to me. He’s really good at giving advice.”

The gospel show, Barber said, was different. Cooper brought in praise dance instructors so she and other members could learn those techniques. “It touched people’s hearts.”