Like some of the songs she gets her students to play, Kelly Ballard has a naturally upbeat way of discussing her life and time as a music and band teacher at Girls Preparatory School.
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She has been able to grow the band and orchestra participants at the independent girls’ school in North Chattanooga in her nearly three years there, she said positively, and she also credits the support of her fellow fine arts teaching colleagues and others.

“I work with amazing people. They are amazing educators,” she said. “I love coming to work every day.”

But in contrast with the supportive staff and a more crowded band and rehearsal room of students on school days now, two decades earlier she had to go it alone and literally move to the beat of her own drum. However, it was in a good, pioneering and also-supported way, as she, in 2005, successfully became the first female drum major in the history of the prestigious University of Tennessee Pride of the Southland Marching Band.

Then known as Kelly Bradshaw, she was able to beat out four other male finalists for the honor at this school that had previously had only female assistant drum majors.

As Ms. Ballard recently sat in her spacious practice room at the school during a teaching break and reminisced, she implied that her life has involved plenty of physical moves since college with various jobs. But it has always involved musical movements, too.

“I started the piano when I was 4 or 5 and I kept going,” she said of her young years growing up in Roanoke, Va. “I played piano and flute and was super into choir.”

Ms. Ballard also served as high school drum major for two years and said that and her other experiences in music leadership helped her become more outgoing. This would help down the road at UT, where she first played piccolo in the band for two years. The band, she said, had members playing smaller piccolos instead of flutes due to the tight marching in the school’s unique and famous circle drill performed at some of the halftime performances.

By the time her third year was getting ready to start, she decided to try out for the high-profile drum major position, which at UT also involves some gymnastics-like strutting and back stretching as well as conducting the band.

Although she had decided to apply and did some preparatory work with the band several weeks in advance, the main tryout involved a day of interviews, including a marching sequence and some strutting. And, if you passed the first round, you later led a rehearsal of band members.

“The whole day felt surreal,” she said, remembering that she had bought a dress suit for the interview and picked her favorite band song, which was the opening sequence to “The New World.”

The following Monday was when she was to learn if she had been selected. “During classes that day, that was all I could think about,” she said. “I went to choir rehearsal and then I saw my roommate stick her face in the door.”

She ran out into the hallway, she said, and there on the board was her name as the drum major. She had made history as the school’s first female drum major.

“I ran all over the place,” she recalled with excitement, even though more than two decades had passed. “I could not believe it. I called my dad, and he was speechless. It was amazing, really fun.”

She then remembered meeting with the band director, Dr. Gary Sousa, and he told her he was going to be as hard on her as he was on any male drum major, but she also quickly realized he was going to be in her corner, too, and support her. She eventually met the legendary and respected former band director, Dr. J. Julian, and, although she was nervous about meeting him, he gave her a supportive hug and welcomed her heartily to the exclusive club.

When the 2005 football season rolled around, she was able to get going well as the drum major, despite initially trying to see past a TV cameraman as the pregame performance of the first game was getting ready to start. The music all went well, but the Vols had their first bad season in several years under Coach Phillip Fulmer and finished only with a 5-6 record. 

This was in the early days of social media, with Facebook the primary source, and she remembered that somehow people were blaming the fact that the Vols were struggling in football on having a female drum major for the first time.

But the season in which she was greatly supported by the band included plenty of high moments as well. She was interviewed by some reporters at the Florida game in Gainesville, and the band got to play at Tiger Stadium in a game that was moved to a Monday night due to Hurricane Katrina. The team and band also took a rare trip up to Notre Dame, where she met former Fighting Irish walk-on star Rudy Ruettiger of the famous “Rudy” movie after she introduced herself to him.

“Rudy knew who I was,” she recalled. “He said, ‘I know about you. You are the lady drum major.’”

After finishing at UT, her life would become much quieter, but the music never stopped. In 2009, she married John Ballard, a TVA engineer who had played in the band at Hixson High. They would later have two sons, Bryan and James.

Kelly worked in special education at Big Ridge Elementary and taught some private music lessons. The latter halted with the COVID-19 outbreak beginning in 2020, when she home-schooled Bryan, who is scheduled to attend McCallie this fall.

“I was so bored and ready for a change and looking for private lessons,” she said of that time. 

She was soon hired at the former Cadek Conservatory that had been moved to GPS. From there, she learned about an opening at GPS, and following a full day of interviews with everyone from school head Megan Cover to some students and some mock conducting perhaps reminiscent of the also-stressful drum major audition, she was hired.

“Two days later they said they wanted to offer me the job,” she said. “I was so happy. I just remember thinking that I get to be the band director.”

She said the band and orchestra members have grown from 12 in each one when she started in the 2023-24 school year to 22 and 40, respectively, this year. “I’ve had so much fun,” she said, adding that this her first time to direct a band.

Kelly said she has also grown in her appreciation for the school. In fact, ending up at an all-girls school was not what she once imagined, but she says she more clearly sees how God’s plan for her life has now come together. One could say this woman who still wears orange on Fridays has found her own Rocky Top here.

“The girls are amazing,” she said. “They are so wonderful and kind and funny and smart. They are their own true selves here, and I’m glad the orchestra and band can be a part of that.”

Many at the school are also aware of her pioneering role of yesteryear due to a speech about her drum major experiences she gave her first year for Women’s History Month.

“It was so well received,” she recalled. “I still hear about it today.”

by John Shearer

The foreboding admonition from the soothsayer in William Shakespeare’s play “Julius Caesar,” “Beware the Ides of March,” seems to have taken on yet another sinister layer of concern in recent years. Since the words were first written and performed (generally believed by historians to have been in 1599), they have become a familiar catchphrase warning of a looming catastrophe, something wicked lying ahead, and other, similar forecasts of doom.
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So, what exactly are the ides of March? Julius Caesar created the “Julian” calendar, which consisted of four “long” months (March, May, July and October) each of which had 31 days. All the other months (considered “short” months) were made up of between 23 and 29 days. The Julian calendar was based upon the phases of the moon, of which there were three: The kalends, the nones and the ides. The kalends always occurred on the first day of each month, the nones on the fifth day of the shorter months or the seventh day of the longer months, and the ides were celebrated on the 13th or the 15th day during each of the four longer months.

There are varying opinions among historians as to whether the Julian calendar was based upon the phases of the moon or agriculture, on what days the kalends, nones and the ides were celebrated, as well as other bits of minutia which you might want to research yourself, in case Punxsutawney Phil (aka “The Groundhog”) saw his shadow on February 2 and scurried back into his underground den in shock for another six dark, cold weeks. Based on some of the frigid weather we’ve experienced thus far in 2026, quiet research in the warm comfort of one’s home sounds like a pretty good idea!

When Shakespeare penned “Julius Caesar,” England was at odds with most of Europe over its refusal to accept the Gregorian calendar (begun in 1582 utilized until 1752) over the Julian calendar.

It is generally accepted that the ides of March featured a full moon (seems that crazy things consistently expose themselves under the bright light of a full moon; again, there’s that familiar lunar connection with regard to the ides of March). The 15th of March also was a major festival honoring the might of the Roman military, thereby piling on even more drama to the untimely death of one of Rome’s greatest leaders.

Following Caesar’s execution in the Senate on that fateful 15th day of March, Rome was consumed in civil wars and the rise of Caesar’s adopted son, Octavian Augustus, who transformed the Republic into the beginning of Imperialism and the Roman Empire. From Shakespeare’s time till the present, this oft-repeated inauspicious phrase, the ides of March, “represents a warning against the dangers and possibilities of the concentrated power and the fragile path between popular rule and autocratic authority.”

And now we are in the month March, named to honor Mars, the Roman god of war. Ironically, March is the month from the Julian Calendar which brings with it a more pleasantly anticipated version of “March Madness.” Meanwhile, our magnificent nation is struggling. Not unlike the rise of the Roman Empire following Caesar’s execution and the civil unrest which followed, America is on the cusp of a potentially lethal downward spiral from history’s greatest country (warts and all) into something bearing little resemblance to the land that we have known and loved as it has evolved over the last 250 years. Our nation is teetering on the edge of a dangerous precipice, staring into a very dark abyss - our present-day ides of which we must beware. What has transpired throughout our country is a stark recognition of how deep and wide the chasm of our separation as fellow citizens has become.

Perhaps a beginning to the process of mending and healing the divisiveness under which we currently seem constantly to struggle just might be found in the words of author and spiritual teacher, Ram Dass. He and other artists, musicians and philosophers have also incorporated into their work a message of which we should all “be(a)ware” …

The wise ones know we’re in this together, and we’re all just walking each other home.

by Forde Kay

It’s still winter even though the hope of spring is in the air. Tree tips are swollen with buds about to burst, and shoots of bright green poke up out of dark brown earth.

We’re still wearing coats and gloves for the most part, so it’s hard to imagine sitting outside in the evening listening to music. But Reflection Riding’s Campfire Concert Series starts April 3 and runs through May 22. That last date is reserved for Tennessee Dead, a tribute band celebrating the music of the iconic Grateful Dead. Chances are if I’m familiar with the Grateful Dead, you are too.

Most of these concerts are on Friday evenings, but Randy Steele and the High Cold Wind takes the stage on April 25, a Saturday. You may know their music inside out, but I didn’t. The band is pretty new, formed in 2022. Called “high-energy and engaging,” the band skillfully plays instruments that include banjo, guitar, guitar, upright bass and more. Let’s just say it’s impossible to keep still and hard to stay blue when they are performing.

I went to my first Campfire Concert last summer, catching the very last one, a Phish tribute band. I don’t care if you are nuts about the music offered or not, this event is a very special and rare occasion. Reflection Riding is one of the most beautiful places on Earth, with views of the mountain range from picturesque fence-lined meadows and the wide open sky, all with the sun showing off as it sets. Really, just the opportunity to spend an evening watching the sky turn all shades of melon and pomegranate and settle into dusk as children run around playing tag and dancing and just scampering about in general is worth the price of admission.

Included in that admission is a beer or two from local brewery Hutton & Smith and as many s’mores as you want to eat. A blazing bonfire stays stoked and crackling, beckoning folks to gather around it and soak the whole experience in as the marshmallows turn a soft golden brown with the most delicate crust ever before being smashed between two graham crackers lined with Hershey’s chocolate. Wait! Let that chocolate melt a little from the hot marshmallow goo before taking your first bite.

Vendors are on site with food options, but you can bring your own picnic if you’d rather. Camping on that wide-open field is optional with a small up charge. (Imagine waking up to that sunrise!)

Bring a camp chair and maybe a blanket to stretch out on under the stars. And bring your kids or grandkids. No admission fee if they are under 12.

The Reflection Riding website states, “This series is a journey into the heart of what makes our community tick in a setting that’ll make your soul sing. As you tap your foot to the rhythm, you’re not just enjoying a show. You’re becoming part of our story. Every concert weaves you deeper into the fabric of our mission, connecting you to the land, the music, and the community we’re building together.

“So come on out, breathe in the fresh air, feel the music in your bones, and discover what happens when we combine the best of nature and culture. Each concert is an invitation to reflect, connect, and engage with both nature and our community. Join us as we harmonize conservation, education, and the arts, creating unforgettable evenings under the Tennessee sky.”

Sold.
Learn more at reflectionriding.org.
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by Ferris Robinson