Longtime Jordan High band director dies

Former Jordan High teacher and band director Joe Price died Wednesday night in his Columbus home after a lengthy illness.

He was 82.

Gary Currier was a former Jordan band student who said that Price had a profound impact on his life and career.

“If it had not been for Joe, I would have gone to work in the cotton mills,” he said. “That’s what you did in Columbus back then.”

Instead, Currier went on to a 25-year career as a band director, including eight years at Columbus High School.

“He made me a musician,” said Currier, who like Price played the french horn. “I knew how to play, but he taught me the finer points.”

Price led a Jordan High band that at times was 150 strong. And he did it in a precise manner, Currier said.

“I couldn’t wait to get to school at Jordan so I could be in that band,” said Currier, who graduated in 1971.

Under Price, the Jordan band had a high-profile, playing in President Richard Nixon’s inaugural parade. His bands received superior ratings at the Georgia Music Educators Festival for 22 consecutive years.

Price, a native of Newton, Miss., with an undergraduate degree from the University of Southern Mississippi, taught band at Port Charlotte, Indianola and Tupelo high schools in his home state before moving to Georgia. He taught at Buena Vista High, Jordan and Shaw before retiring.

His longest tenure was 22 years at Jordan, a school with a rich band history.

Price could be gruff and would push his students in different ways, Currier said.

“If he could intimidate you, he was happy,” Currier said. “But he was much happier if you sassed back at him. That’s what he wanted.”

Price, who never married, had no immediate family. As his health declined, Currier and Historic District residents Tasca Hagler and Tommy Savage became critical caregivers when Price made the decision to remain in the Broadway home he had lived in for more than 35 years.

Savage said Price could be blunt, but you had to take it at face value.

“He was a true-hearted person,” Savage said. “He was true to his beliefs, to the end. Though I disagreed with almost everything he said, I always had great respect for him.”

Price’s wit was sharp, and at times cutting. But with that wit came great intellect, Hagler said.

“He was the most intellectually gifted man I ever met,” she said.

Price was also a pioneer in the Historic District, a residential neighborhood just south of downtown. Price moved into a house in the 600 block of Broadway around 1980 when the push to revitalize was beginning.

“He was one of the first people to move down here,” said Richard Hagler, Tasca’s husband. “And he did it when it wasn’t the thing to do. The truth is Joe and the others that came down here helped to create what brought the rest of us down here.”

Currier was with Price Wednesday night when he died in his home.

“I think his legacy is the thousands of kids he touched through band,” Currier said. “It’s not only the people he touched directly, but five or six of his students became band directors. And think of the thousands of kids we have touched because he touched us.”

Arrangements are pending.

This story was originally published August 18, 2016 at 10:40 AM with the headline "Longtime Jordan High band director dies."