Jason Jones comes to Brownwood High School to take over as Band Director. He’s been teaching for 25 years and is excited to begin his new role. 

“Brownwood is really like a second home to me. I have family that lives here, I graduated from Howard Payne, I taught in Early. It was a good opportunity for me to come to a place that we view as home,” Jones said.

Jones graduated from Howard Payne in 1999 and began his professional career back where he grew up, in Pampa. He then went to Panhandle before doing graduate work at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. From there Jones went from Early, to Burnet, and San Angelo before his recent arrival in Brownwood.

As for his vision with the band, Jones said, “I know the band program has been very successful. It’s been cool to watch them be successful. The Lambert’s got here when I was in Early so I’ve known them for a long time, so seeing the band continue to be successful. But what I’d really like to do is continue that success and then try to push these kids to greater heights and see how far they can go and see what they can accomplish whether it’s in the corporate band setting, as a group, or individually through auditions, solos, and ensembles.”

The plan in place, for now, won’t require much changes, Jones said, “I’ve been talking to the staff and trying to find out how things are set up and how to integrate the way that I do things into the system. It’s one of those things that if it’s working there’s no reason to make wholesale changes. So I’ve been trying to really evaluate what’s been going on, talk to the leaders, talk to the staff, talk to the administration, and then come in and say ‘okay how can I put my tweaks on this’ and make small adjustments and continue the success that the kids have had.”

Reflecting on his reason behind teaching band, Jones said, “I’ve always loved band, I started band in fifth grade. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, because both my parents were teachers, my dad was a coach, and I grew up playing basketball and doing band. I actually majored in physical education in college and music was my minor. I thought I was going to coach, but I had an opportunity to be an assistant band director with my band director in my hometown. That started me down the road of being a band director. Making music with a group of kids is very similar to coaching a sports team, except it’s usually more kids. Marching band is my favorite thing to do and I love putting together a show and having the kids have the fulfillment of working on something for two or three months and performing it and it just gets better all the time. I very much would say I coach band. That’s how I look at it. There’s so much similarities between the two.”

Jones said he’s excited for Friday nights. “I love football games and I love the band being involved with the football games as much as we can. You know we get down there at half time and we perform our show, but in the stands we are there to support the football team, the drill team, the cheerleaders and all that. Then try to create a hostile environment for the other team coming in to play, but I’m looking forward to being a part of Friday night lights in Brownwood. It’s such a storied tradition and history and it’s gonna be fun to be in Gordon Wood on Friday nights and just get to experience that as part of it, it’s gonna be fun.”

Regarding the move to Brownwood, Jones said, “My wife and I have always talked about that we saw ourselves coming back to Brownwood. My family’s here and we’ve lived here some and the slogan ‘Feels Like Home’ really is accurate. We’ve felt at home from the time we got here and the parents, the students, and the administration have been fantastic. And when I saw the job come open I was like ‘I’ve got to take a look at this’ and when I got over here it was just like this is gonna be perfect for my family.”