Matt Kleopfer, the band director for Iola’s high school and middle school since the 2012-2013 school year, has announced his decision to resign.
Kleopfer said he is leaving the position because it did not leave enough time to spend with his family.
“When you come home and you put your kids to bed and the last thing they say before you shut the lights out is, ‘Are you going to be home tomorrow?’ If that’s their No. 1 concern, are we going to get to see you tomorrow, I don’t like that. That really bugs me, and my kids started asking me that more and more,” Kleopfer said Thursday during a phone conversation from his home.
“I just didn’t want them constantly wondering if I was going to be home the next day. I wanted them to worry about things kids are supposed to be worrying about, not that.”
Kleopfer also said he does not want his wife, Jenessa, who is pregnant with their fourth child, to have all the responsibilities of caring for their children as well as their livestock. The Kleopfers live in rural Fredonia.
His fall schedule left little time to be home.
“Marching band gets pretty crazy pretty fast and it doesn’t really let up until the beginning of November,” Kleopfer said. “Then you get about two weeks to kind of reset your sails and then it’s pep band and Christmas concerts.”
“This semester I cut a lot of extra commitments out of the schedule, which I hated to do because it’s stuff that made us who we were,” Kleopfer said.
THE SEEDS of leaving began to sprout over the summer when he spent more time with his children while still teaching music in Iola two days a week.
“I spent a bunch of time with my kids and it was just amazing,” Kleopfer said. “It was kind of a weird feeling, like it almost felt like I got to know them for the first time, like truly know who they were, not just saying ‘hi’ and ‘bye’ like I was all the time.”
One day after weed eating at the country club, Kleopfer had a conversation with George Levans, a retired football coach and magistrate court judge.
“He gave me some wisdom,” Kleopfer said. “He had the unfortunate event that, as a parent, he had to bury one of his own kids. Like, he outlived one of his children, and he started to tear up and said, ‘Man, you can’t ever get that time back.’”
Afterward, Kleopfer could not stop thinking about what Levans told him. He saw a similarity between his experience as a father and band director and Levans’ hectic schedule and limited family time as a football coach.
“As the summer went on, it stuck with me this whole time and it just put weight on my heart the more I considered it and looked at it that my family has kind of always been second to the job,” Kleopfer said. “Just because of the way the job is set up, I’m sure there are some out there who do and can, but with the obstacles that I had, I tried my hardest to make my family the first priority and do that job the justice it needed.”
Kleopfer’s conclusion was a change needed to be made.
“I just sat down and thought about it and prayed about it, and it’s, ‘Well, maybe I’m not supposed to be (here), maybe he’s got somebody else planned,” Kleopfer said. “Maybe he’s got somebody else ready to go.”
WHAT COMES next is as much a mystery to Kleopfer as to everyone else, but he is in no way worried about the future.
“I honestly don’t have a clue (what I will do after this school year),” Kleopfer said. “Most smart band directors don’t quit their jobs until they have another job lined out. The kids know me, that I always do things backward and different.”
Kleopfer said he shared his thoughts with his students on Monday.
Kleopfer said he told the students, “‘I just have to tell you that I have the faith to know that you’re going to get taken care of.’ After I said that, I started looking around the room at the kids and knew the timing was perfect.”
Perfect, Kleopfer said, because of his students.
“They’ve all been marinating, waiting for the opportunity to step up,” Kleopfer said. “There’s a massive amount of leadership ready to step up. Not just two or three, we’re talking 25-30, a massive amount of leaders. Those kids have more to offer the program than I do.”
That potential is why Kleopfer is confident this the right time for a new band director to come in.
“When I realized that, my fears went away,” Kleopfer said.
“This is the perfect opportunity for somebody else to step in because all these kids are ready to step up and help,” Kleopfer said. “They know their job, they know their role, they know their purpose. They know when to practice, when to relax, when to work on classwork. That was comforting to me.”
THE ARRIVAL of Kleopfer in Iola almost never happened. Kleopfer said he was not among the original candidates for the job because the attached documents on his application were never received by the school district.
Kleopfer was not considered until he was recommended by Victor Markovich, Kleopfer’s band director at Wichita State University, when Stacey Fager, Iola High School principal, called to ask about another applicant. Kleopfer later interviewed and received the position.
“It was pretty evident that God led me to Iola and had a list of things that I think he needed done,” Kleopfer said. “I watched him work a lot of pretty cool miracles since I’ve been here.”
While the drive to Iola was long, Kleopfer said he did not consider moving closer.
“I’ll never move for any reason,” Kleopfer said. “No other job anywhere else music-wise ever looked appealing. Over the course of five years I was offered numerous jobs and it was like, ‘Nope.’ I’ve just kind of always felt like I don’t want to go anywhere and I still don’t. I don’t want to teach anywhere else, to be completely honest.”
THE TIME commitment, not burnout from work, is what led to Kleopfer’s decision to put family first.
“It’s definitely not because of a burnout,” Kleopfer said. “I still love it. I just knew that the commitment of time with the obstacles I’m dealing with — with being so far away, and just the job in general — requires more time than I can offer it right now.”
In his Tuesday Facebook announcement of his decision to leave, Kleopfer said giving less than 100 percent is never an option for him. The definition of what constitutes 100 percent, though is subjective.
“I honestly don’t know what my contract says to do or not do,” Kleopfer said. “I really was not concerned about when was the day supposed to start and when was our contract supposed to end. I don’t sit there and count minutes, I don’t count hours. I don’t see the job like that, I just saw the grand picture of my vision and just doing whatever it took to make it happen.”
The contract itself did not have a detailed job description.
“It just said, ‘Come here and teach band and do the best you can,’” Kleopfer said. “When you sit there and write everything out that they expect, nine times out of 10, that’s the bare minimum that they’re going to do. I want to teach my kids that (you) don’t wait for somebody else to tell you what needs to get done; you need to be able to figure that out on your own.
“What is the next step, what needs to be better? You’re constantly asking yourself that. If you’re on this earth to pursue excellence — life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — then you’re not going to sit there and look at a contract and go, ‘My job is this, this and this. I stamp this, I punch that, I polish this, I go home.”
COMMUNITY SUPPORT was a major factor in the success of the band program and will continue to be, Kleopfer said.
“I never would have guessed from a small town that that was there,” Kleopfer said. “I knew there had been something special there once before, but not like that. That just jumped out of nowhere.”
Kleopfer said one example of the community support came in the form of donations to fund the band’s trip to play during halftime of the 2014 Alamo Bowl between K-State and UCLA.
“The support from the community, it was astronomical,” Kleopfer said. “When we were going on trips and there was a new stack of checks from random community members to help us go to San Antonio blew my mind.”
Kleopfer said his one piece of advice for the next band director comes from what he considers one of his biggest failures and the key to the continued success of the band program.
“I did not do a good job of figuring out a way to get the parents involved,” Kleopfer said. “Ultimately, that is what determines the longevity of the program. One of my downfalls is I have a hard time asking other people for help just because if I can do it myself, I’m not going to bother somebody else to do it for me. That’s kind of unfortunately the stubborn farmer mentality I have.”
I’m thankful for the parents that didn’t really wait for me to step up and say ‘I need help,’” Kleopfer said. “They just jumped in.”
Community support was what kept Kleopfer going.
“I had a lot of people looking out for me and praying for me all the time,” Kleopfer said. “That’s the only thing that kept me in the ballgame this long. I probably shouldn’t have made it five years, to be honest.”
Iola parents also helped Kleopfer in other ways, even if they didn’t know it. He said he observed the parenting styles used with his students, who were all from a wide range of family backgrounds.
“What is it that makes a really good kid, why are some kids so willing to always help you and why are some, they just don’t care about anything?” Kleopfer said. “The variable wasn’t money, it wasn’t how nice of things they had. The variable to me was honestly, (for) a lot of them, their father figure.”
This observation helped him realize he needed to be home more with his children.
“I started looking at the dads in Iola and I got this pocket of dads that I look up to and watch from a distance and watch how they interact with their kids,” Kleopfer said.
EFFICIENCIES and facilities were two areas Kleopfer said caused difficulties during his time in Iola.
“The issue is facilities having equipment strung through three different buildings,” Kleopfer said. “It took five years just to get it figured out that we have to have everything at one place to get things to run efficiently.”
Kleopfer said he contributes the success of the band to figuring out ways to be more efficient with equipment and time over his five years. However, there is a limit to how effective efficiency can be.
“Eventually you reach a cap — I don’t feel we’ve reached (a cap yet) — with your facilities, your money,” Kleopfer said. “There’s only so much you can do.”
School bus breakdowns plagued the band.
“How many times did we take a school bus — and it’s not our transportation department’s fault, they’re just trying to do the best they can with what we have — but man, we were stranded on the road more than seven or eight times,” Kleopfer said. “A lot of our equipment broke just because the Band-Aid solution was, ‘get it through the short-term.’”
Kleopfer said he does not want to see a short-term solution for the band or school facilities.
“Having been there and put my heart and soul into that, I don’t want to see more short-term solutions,” Kleopfer said. “I want to see a long-term solution. And having a long-term solution means you got to make long-term decisions, which are scarier because there’s more to invest in a decision, but that is what needs to get done.”
Kleopfer stressed the importance of community support in finding long-term solutions.
“I know that people’s main concern for a director is finding a long-term solution,” Kleopfer said. “But I believe somebody coming in and being a long-term solution is going to be a byproduct of the community actively every year just giving an insane amount of support. I feel like if a long-term deal is all they’re concerned about, they’re going to have a lot more short-term situations.”
While the band has some nice instruments, good facilities are a game-changer, Kleopfer said.
“If a teacher has the opportunity to go somewhere where stuff works, equipment works, they have what they need to get the job done, that’s where they’re going to go,” Kleopfer said. “I was there because of the music, but it sure made the job a lot harder when either we didn’t have it, or it didn’t work, or it was broken or it took multiple trips to haul stuff here and there. It wasn’t ideal, but we didn’t let that hold us back.”
Better facilities, Kleopfer said, would cost money.
“Our schools only does the best they can with what they have because they get money from the state,” Kleopfer said. “But every single great facility I’ve ever seen, a lot of that money is poured in from the town at the local level. Those are local decisions being made, that’s local money that’s coming in and doing that stuff.”
THE BAND has the potential to be successful without him at the helm, Kleopfer said.
“I told the kids that they will definitely let the town know how good of a leader I was because when a great leader leaves the spotlight and a new one steps in, no one ever notices they left,” Kleopfer said.
In fact, some of his favorite memories with the band have come without him directing, such as sitting to the side as the middle school jazz band performed.
“I could have stood up there and conducted or I could have played with them, but sitting in the seats and watching them play was way more fun,” Kleopfer said. “Watching the machine sit there and run on its own and not having to sit up behind the steering wheel and steer, just watching it self-propel was like, ‘Oh, man, this is so cool.’”
Kleopfer said he also loved taking the band to other communities.
“I love watching other people’s faces that have never heard our kids play before and just watching the sheer excitement,” Kleopfer said. “The eyes light up, it’s like they’re being electrocuted.
“Our middle school jazz band for the last five years has totally blown people’s minds and it was so fun to watch.”
The system developed during Kleopfer’s five years will aid the next director.
“We had to get a system, a routine, of getting everybody to know their job, their role and their purpose,” Kleopfer said. “When I came, nobody knew their role and purpose. Now, even the parents are starting to figure out their role and purpose. Certain kids know that after a concert, this equipment needs to go here. They don’t come and ask, they just do it.”
People should not mumble or grumble about the next band director during football games next fall, regardless of what happens, Kleopfer said.
“I want them saying the names of kids that are out there,” Kleopfer said. “I want them going, ‘Well, so and so out there playing trumpet, man, they’re a hell of a player, and you have so and so out there on clarinet and look at old so and so on the snare drum back there.’ The director really doesn’t have much to do with it, in my personal opinion. It’s ultimately what it comes down to is there’s a great group of kids getting ready to take this sucker over.”
