TRUCKEE, Calif. — This week I met a gentleman who has touched so many lives in our community, it is hard to imagine how big that number would be if we could add it all up.

If you have attended a performance or meeting in the Truckee High School Theater, he has touched your life. If you have kids in any of the Truckee High music programs, he has touched you. If you have kids who attended Truckee High in the past, he has most likely touched your lives too. Arts For the Schools has really felt the supportive touch of the wonderful Mr. Green.

Dave Green, band director, has been at Truckee High School for 24 years, and at the end of this school year, he plans to retire.

Turns out his plan was to stay for three to four years to set up a music program, then move on. I am sure there are many folks out there who are glad he changed his mind, including all of us from Arts For the Schools.

Mr. Green teaches jazz band, concert band, symphonic band, marching band, pit band, pep band, and travels with kids to honor band performances. He has a number of students who have gone on to a career working or teaching in the music and theater fields.

He manages the Truckee High School Theater and teaches a Music Production class where students learn about the sound systems, stage lighting and set construction for the theater.

During performances, like Arts For the Schools OnStage public performances, and the recent "Best of Broadway" musical revue, the lighting and sound is typically managed by students from the Music Production class. They also learn set construction, including how to build sets and how to do a bid sheet, right down to the nuts, bolts and screws.

Mr. Green has been in the music field for 46 years. Looking back, before he landed at Truckee High, his positions included teaching music and art in Shingletown, a small town in Northern California.

For just more than four years he was in Jakarta, Indonesia, teaching at an international school and managing a 750-seat theater. He taught four-and-a-half years as a traveling (on a BMW motorcycle!) music teacher for 13 elementary schools, developing a full orchestra of 60 kids who played for the mayor of Sacramento at Christmas tree lighting ceremonies.

Other posts included Band Director at El Dorado High School, adding choir and drama when those teachers left; teaching orchestra at Cordova Folsom High School; marching band and music theory at Hiram Johnson High School; he taught music at his own Junior High, Fern Bacon in Sacramento and at Mills Jr. High in the Folsom-Cordova School District; and he taught at Linden High School for one year.

Green is a professional flute player, playing with the Reno Philharmonic, and performing with Glendale, Burbank, Sacramento and Camellia Orchestras.

Since 1998, Green has participated in the California Band Directors Association. Green is currently president of the CMEA Northern Section, and is on the Nor Cal Board of 26 counties as their representative to the CBDA State Board. He will keep his fingers in the music education field by continuing with his board work after retirement.

He's been involved in community theater since seventh grade. Dave Green is the force behind the theater you see today at Truckee High. He was on the committee for the new high school gym and cafeteria.

When funds became available, after those projects he carefully helped accomplish additions to the theater including a handicap accessible seating area. He also added an accessible workspace for managing the stage systems.

Dave met his wife (where else?) in high school band. They have two biological children and adopted six more from many different countries and backgrounds. Most of their children play musical instruments – clarinet, saxophone, flute, and others. After retirement, he is looking forward to spending time with his wife, perhaps doing some traveling.

In his own words: "It's been fun." He adds that this is a small community with strong support for kids. Arts For the Schools wishes Mr. Green well on his retirement.