Correspondent photo / John D. Bagnola ... Tom Ruggieri, holding microphone, leads the Boardman High School Jazz Ensemble during the 2k23 Pop / Rock Band performance at the April 4 Boardman High School Jazz Fest. After 23 years in the Boardman Local School District, Ruggieri is retiring to spend more time with family.

BOARDMAN — Tom Ruggieri has been a band director in the Mahoning Valley for 34 years and has spent the past 23 years in Boardman. Now he plans to retire.

Ruggieri calls himself a performance-oriented teacher.

“I believe the more our students share their musical talents in front of an audience, the more the students will realize the benefits of their work,” he said.

Whereas most high school band programs do an average of 25 performances per year, band and jazz groups at Boardman do about 60.

“In addition to our usual schedule of football games, concerts and parades, the band gets invited to lots of national and local events. If it will be good for the students, programs, school and community, I try to accept,” Ruggieri said.

At 58, he said he has mixed emotions about his decision to retire.

“I will really miss what I call the greatest avocation any musician could ever ask for. It was quite a challenge, at first, to teach and direct a 270-member marching band. It was even more of an awakening to develop 20 different large and small ensembles in grades 5 through 12. But I never would have changed this opportunity and experience for anything in the world,” Ruggieri said.

“At my age, in the field of music, I feel as though I still have so much more to offer. But at this point in my life, I really believe I need to spend more quality time with my wife, Patti (31 years) and adult son, Nico, and daughter, Rachel, and her husband, Brad (Schneider).

During his 34 years in the Mahoning Valley, he was an assistant director at Boardman for half of his first year out of college. He then went to East High School as the band director for eight years. He was at Liberty High School for two years, then became the Boardman director in 1999.

He took over the job from his own high school band director, Tom Groth, who now is executive director of the W.D. Packard Band.

EDUCATION AND TEACHING PHILOSOPHY

Ruggieri is a 1983 Boardman High graduate and acquired his undergraduate Bachelor of Science in education and music from Youngstown State University in 1988. He then went on to Marygrove College in Detroit and received his master’s degree in teaching in 2003.

It is very difficult to travel safely with busloads of students, but Ruggieri has it down to a science. He was invited to write articles in “Teach & Travel” magazine, writing articles titled “Tips from a Teacher,” “Cheers, Applause, and Going Places” and “Fundraising Reflections.”

He loves teaching, but his philosophy is to define who the students are first.

“Encourage students to discover what they like doing. Figure out what you love to do; then determine if you can make money doing it. You must work in a job you love. Then it becomes fun and not just a chore. We don’t want to just teach students how to play an instrument and sing, but to become greatly employable,” Ruggieri said.

MEMORABLE PERFORMANCES

Ruggieri said he was “enthralled” the first time he received an invitation for his students to perform with The Ohio State University Marching Band. He loaded his uniform-clad, 270-piece marching band on eight buses and headed to Columbus to perform at the Skull Session before the football game. The band performed so well that they were invited back a couple of years later.

“It is so rewarding to be invited all over the country and to watch our students shine after hours and hours of dedicated rehearsal,” he said.

Other marching band performances that occurred during his tenure were invitations to the New York City Veterans Day Parade, the Chicago Thanksgiving Day Parade, Graceland in Memphis, The Nations Parade in Norfolk, Virginia, America’s Thanksgiving Parade in Detroit, and the Fantasy of Lights Christmas parade in Gatlinburg, Tenn.

His jazz bands also performed in many venues throughout America, including Swing 46 in Manhattan, BluJazz+ in Akron, and the OMEA Music Convention in Columbus and in Cincinnati. Locally, there have been many performances throughout the years, including at Woodworth Park, Waterfire Sharon, Columbiana Firestone Park, Salem Waterworth Park and Boardman Park; the annual Mahoning Retired Teachers holiday luncheon, Pinwheels for Prevention ceremony at Akron Children’s Hospital Mahoning Valley, the Packard JAM Fest, Youngstown Phantoms games and other schools’ jazz festivals.

Ruggieri also has a knack for bringing in famous musical artists to perform with his students. In January, James Morrison and Willie Murillo, two world-renowned trumpet players, performed with the BHS Jazz Ensembles at the Boardman Performing Arts Center. Morrison is also a multi-instrumentalist who has performed with such greats as Herbie Hancock, Quincy Jones, Ray Charles and B.B. King. Murillo has performed and recorded with Jennifer Lopez, Kelly Clarkson and Bruno Mars, among others. Other notables who performed on stage with the Boardman students were Eric Marienthal (saxophone), The Buddy Rich Big Band, Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band, Bernie Dresel (drums), Andy Martin (trombone) and Allen Vizzutti (trumpet).

MUSICAL ACCOLADES

Ruggieri was nominated five times for the Grammy Music Educator Award — in 2014, 2016, 2017, 2019 and 2020. He was a quarterfinalist all five times, meaning he ranked in the top 217 in the country out of more than 30,000 nominees.

He said many of his students have gone on to great careers, including Anthony LaMarca, who plays in the Grammy-winning band The War on Drugs; Nick Sainato, drummer for the band Nightly based in Nashville; Reese Maslen with a band called Ravine based in Nashville; and James Harker with a band called Spirit of the Bear based in Columbus.

Besides spending hours with his students, Ruggieri also has played or still plays drums and percussion in many local bands such as the John Reese Project, BackBeat, Hollywood, Misty, Joe Augustine Trio, Straight No Chaser, Music at Madison, Teddy Pantelas Trio, The Diamonds, The Cue, Magic of Motown, The W.D. Packard Band, the Big Band Sound of Packard, and the Packard Dixieland Band.

He also has made some individual musical appearances with The Drifters, The Marvelettes, Franco Corso, Dick Contino, The Texas Tenors, Frank Gorshin, Jimmy Mulidore, Pete Barbuti, Henry Cuesta and Gianni Russo.

Ruggieri said even though he is retiring, he plans to stay active in music education and performance, while spending more quality time with his family.

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