Band is back at Rifle Middle School

Before the school bell rings at Rifle Middle School, you may find some sixth-grade band students on the playground with their shiny new instruments in hand.

They don't know many notes yet, and that hasn't stopped them.

“They know three notes, and that means we know three songs,” new band teacher Ben Sevy said.

Some have even started marching outside the school, playing whatever they can.

“They told me their first day after they got their instruments, ‘We did a marching band,’” Sevy said. “None of them even knew a note yet. They were just going squawk and marching in line, and that’s beautiful. You can’t get more passionate than that.”

That enthusiasm is a welcome sound at Rifle Middle School.

Band is back this year after the school discontinued its traditional program for the second semester of 2025-26 when a newly hired teacher withdrew just before classes resumed because he could not find suitable housing in the area.

Students instead had the opportunity to take a new forensic science course taught by long-term substitute Isa Oliver. Rifle High School band director Jacob Schuelke and high school students also created an after-school band club to help middle school students keep playing.

Still, the interruption had an impact.

“Discontinuing band for even a short amount of time causes some students to lose interest, which we have witnessed firsthand,” RMS Principal Rob Dean said.

Now, the program is rebuilding.

Sevy has nearly 20 seventh-grade students, nearly 20 eighth-graders and a throng of eager sixth graders.

“I thought we’d have no seventh graders because who does that after sixth grade and comes back?” Sevy said. “We have almost 20, and that’s amazing.”

He is working to identify gaps and rebuild fundamentals for students who missed part of their middle school band experience. He said eighth-graders have been especially willing to help newer classmates.

“They’re so happy to have people join,” he said. “They just want to help the family.”

Working his dream job

Sevy, who was teaching at Highlands Ranch at the time, had visited Rifle about two and a half years earlier and was drawn to the community. When the RMS position first became available during the school year, he was interested, although he did not want to leave his students midway through the year.

When the position opened again, he was ready.

“This is the dream job,” Sevy said.

Sevy spent the previous four years teaching in Highlands Ranch and earned his master’s degree from the University of Louisville, where he studied jazz saxophone. What appealed to him about Rifle was the chance to focus on band and build a program in a smaller community.

“I wanted a program in a small community that I could grow,” he said.

Getting here still meant confronting one of the same challenges that interrupted the program last year: housing.

Sevy and his partner, Astasia, were visiting Rifle when a chance conversation connected them with an apartment that had not yet been advertised. Finding a place they could afford helped make the move possible.

“The greatest challenges are salary and housing costs,” Dean said of hiring teachers and staff. “When other districts provide not only higher salaries but also subsidized staff housing, we have a hard time competing even with the advantages we have of a small-town feel in the Roaring Fork Valley.”

Once Sevy arrived, he went to work, spending an estimated 70 to 80 hours over the summer inventorying instruments and organizing the band room. Before his arrival, Schuelke had already helped prepare the program by getting RMS instruments repaired and ready for students. Through a collaborative effort among Glenwood Music, Jazz Aspen Snowmass and Rifle Middle School, Sevy and his students were able to start the year with repaired instruments and a band room ready to make music.

Now students are playing again, rebuilding skills and looking ahead.

Sevy is also working closely with Schuelke to strengthen the connection between the middle and high school programs.

“In a few years, you’re going to see the hard work paying off in both of our schools,” Sevy said.

For now, three notes, a few songs and a dream job are a pretty good place to start.