 HOMETOWN: La Porte City, IA
UNI DEGREE: Bachelor of Music in Education (Instrumental) with a specialization in jazz studies, May 1997
EMAIL:
CURRENT RESIDENCE: Helotes, Texas
OCCUPATION: Assistant Band Director, Rudder Middle School – NISD San Antonio; Semi-Professional Trumpet Player in the San Antonio Area; Lead Trumpet - Westover Hills Assembly of God
GREATEST LIFE EXPERIENCE: Other than getting married to my wife, Kelly (Stursma at the time), in 1996 and now raising our three smart, talented boys, I would have to say my two trips to Europe. One in 1993 as a member of the Wartburg College Concert Band and one in 1996 as a member of the UNI Wind Symphony. You can’t beat a month and a week traveling cheap in a foreign country, and playing the music and instrument you love with a group of close friends! I bet someone has pictures from our first night where they almost had me drink a small pitcher of wine before dancing blindfolded!
STRANGEST LIFE EXPERIENCE: Once again, getting married to my wife, Kelly (just kidding). I think I could get into some sort of legal trouble if I dug very deep into this, but one would have to be when we were accidentally taken on a tour of the Red Light District in Amsterdam on my first trip to Europe with the Wartburg Concert Band
GREATEST PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Playing a jazz gig with the principal trumpeter in the San Antonio Symphony, John Carroll - who, by the way, played the entire gig on C-Trumpet, something I can’t say I would be comfortable doing. As a teacher it would have to be when one of my private studio students made the Texas All-State Jazz Band - one of only 5 trumpeters in the entire state!
STRANGEST PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Being interrupted by the morning announcements at the host school in the middle of the sight-reading portion of UIL Concert Band contest with my middle school band in my first year of teaching. We just kept on playing, if you could call it that, and got a III in sight-reading that year
UNI TRUMPET STUDIO MEMORIES: 1 - 8am trumpet class! I never did memorize those freakin scale studies!
2 - Watching Glenn Olsen look in the bell of his trumpet after cracking a note (something he NEVER did) on the entrance of an off-stage part during a rehearsal leading up to our Hungary tour. If I remember right, Dr. Johnson stopped the entire ensemble and we all just laughed.
3 - Listening to Brent Schultz constantly brag about how he could play a double C but never actually hearing him play it. But I guess deep down we all want to believe we can do it!
4 - Getting to visit the cockpit of the Swiss Air 757 with Branden and Kim Beta while flying over the Atlantic to Hungary. Can’t do that anymore!
5 - Too many memories to list!
ANYTHING ELSE?: A few years after I graduated, my dad gave me a trumpet in excellent condition that he had bought at a flea market. Upon opening the case, I found a mute that had the name “David Kjar” written on it. The best I can figure, it must have been one of his trumpets when he was younger. I still have it and will pass it on to one of my kids. It has been a blast reading through the alumni info pages - Thanks Dr. G for putting this together! | 
