The second I walked into the band room for the first time, I could feel how warm it was.
The room wrapped itself around me like a warm cloak, and I was folded into the wave of sound like it was waiting to swallow me whole. Suddenly, I wasn’t just myself; I was a single part of something greater, one instrument in the symphony of my peers. I was a part of the Sentinel band.
The Sentinel High School Band Program was established in 1957, a single year after Sentinel (formally Missoula County High School) was. In the last 70 years, it has only grown in size and merit.
Since 2016 – when the entire department had only 70 students – the group has flourished to almost six times the size under Band Director Lewis Nelson’s influence. Now, ten years later, the 2026-27 class will be over 300 students in its entirety. Even with its numerous accomplishments and at its peak, the band program is currently balancing under the knife of district budgeting issues.
When money is tight within a school district, the arts are always the first to go. The band program (all of them, between the elementary, middle and high schools under the Missoula County Public School district) already suffered a large blow two years ago when the administration needed to cut the Fine Arts Administrator as well as much of the funding due to state-wide deficits. This was devastating to many at the time, but now, Sentinel is suffering another cut taking form as the dissolution of Blake Mikkola’s job of assistant director.
To many students, myself included, Mr. Mikkola is a part of the band program we’ve grown and flourished around. He was hired my freshman year, in 2023, and he’s made a world of difference for the bands – most notably, Mr. Nelson himself.
After decades of playing music and teaching it to his students, hardships are inevitable. Nelson currently teaches six classes, and with the help of Mikkola, he has time to break from instruction in order to recharge and protect his hearing.
When Mikkola leaves at the end of this school year, that time barrier goes away, too.
Much like the previous budget cuts, the cause of these changes is a result of an ongoing issue within Missoula County. The population of children under the age of five decreased by 0.8% from 2020 to 2024 within the county while the overall population increased by around 2.5%. As far as the population of people under the age of 18 in general, the demographic increased by around 2%. A possible explanation for this difference in percentages could be that as people from out of state move to Missoula, they bring their older kids and families to the county while younger kids who were born in the county grow older.
Considering this information, it’s important to note that Missoula County and the city of Missoula are two different things. While the population of the county is around 122,000, the amount of people actually living within the city limits is only 76,000. As the population of citizens grows in the area, so does the cost of living in the most urban areas.
This is arguably the most prevalent cause of the county’s decreased adolescence. It’s not news to anyone in Missoula that the cost of living has increased rapidly over the last several years. In just this section of economical living, the median value of a house in Missoula County is $562,000; which, compared to the median salary per family ($69,832), is a drastic imbalance. Buying a house in Missoula is around 1.5% more costly than the average house in America.
Even without factoring in the costs of basic necessities, having a family, or the unforgivable cost of raising a child, living in this county (specifically around the city) is an effort best made by the marginally wealthy. But, if someone is stubborn enough about moving to Missoula, Montana, living in the outskirts of the city is leagues better.
Property taxes of a house currently valued at $522,130 are $1,161 in Missoula compared to $918 outside of city limits. The better choice is obvious.
Because of the cost of living in the city, kids aren’t being funneled into the MCPS district like they used to be. As the numbers go down, so does the funding each school receives from the government. Thus, the pullback on “unnecessary” expenses.
All of these statistics and tedious rants about the economic state of Missoula are here to stress the fact that right now, this is just one phase in an inevitable continuation of budget cuts. It should no longer be a surprise to anyone that once again, money is tight in the public schools, and once again, elective arts are always on the chopping block. But, choosing to pursue the arts anyways, especially as a teenager attending the “sports” high school, is what keeps the arts from being chopped completely.
Putting piles of compassion into a constantly shrinking field doesn’t always make a difference. But who would I be if I didn’t try?
I owe a lot to the warmth of that band room. To Nelson’s direction, and Mikkola’s steady assistance. I owe a lot to the person I’ve grown into, too, and the very least I can do is to honor the things I care about. So, I know the band department I’ve grown up in is going to be okay.
Walking into that room now, still belonging to the blanket of sound waiting to be folded into beautiful music, I envelop myself in a tradition that has existed for more than 70 years. Through budget cuts, layoffs, graduations, and new faces, the community I’ve been welcomed into will persist just as its members will.
Money never made musicians, anyways.
