When I started high school, I was a kid in transition. I was growing at odd intervals. My acne ebbed and receded like waves on a beach. I was in a lot of activities, and I was pretty anonymous in all of them. And I was adrift socially (as I have often been since).

Still, at that time in my life, I was pretty entrenched in one group that helped give me an identity at school. I was a band kid.

My folks had encouraged me to play something when I was in fifth grade (“Look at your sister!”), and so I became a trumpeter. In junior high, my band instructor saw I was a decent enough musician, and I was growing taller, so he encouraged me to branch out as a student. In sixth grade, I became a baritone player, because he saw I was big enough to handle a baritone. In seventh grade, he saw I was still growing, realized I could probably carry the lone Sousaphone sitting in the music locker, and then converted me to a tubist. So I was the tuba guy at Eisenhower Middle School in eighth grade.

Which was fine, because it meant as I entered ninth grade at Eldorado High, I was wanted in the band program. The marching band loves tuba players. Concert bands need bass instruments.

So when I started at Eldorado as a freshman, I was brought into the heart of band life there because I was a tuba player. And for two years, band was a big part of my life.

I was pretty much okay as a tubist, though- not really of the same caliber as Alan Lee, who that year was a McDonald All-American high school musician. But I was the youngest of four tuba dudes in the music programs at the time, and I was confined to put my time in as a quiet kid trying to figure out the marching thing and then playing in the concert band during the school year.

The older tuba dudes were nice to me because we were all in a fraternity- we were tubists who had our own tuba room (which, at one point in the marching season my freshman year, we converted to a cool cat lounge that contained, besides tubas, a couch, a small fridge, a TV on a table that we watched morning cartoons on, and a lava lamp), and regardless of whether we we were great or not (which in reality, at least talkling about the older dudes, we were), we were special and needed by the band. We were oddly hip within the band community.

Still, you had to make your daytime friends with other band folks who were actually in your bands, and I didn’t see the older dudes as much once marching season ended because they were in the advanced bands, so I had to make some first friends in my concert band on my own. Not covered by the coolness of my tuba brothers in these band classes, I was there on my own trying to make friends- and it was a bit of a struggle for an otherwise quiet kid.

Fortunately, in band, you sit near your instrument types, so I was always set near the other brass players, which was fortuitous for me in concert band my freshman year, because that is when I met Scott Pendleton.

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Scott Pendleton started attending Eldorado about halfway into the fall semester, and he ended up placed in the concert band. He was a french horn player, so he naturally ended up sitting next to me, and he became one of my early Eldorado friends.

When I first met Scott I thought he was pretty unique. Generally smiley with pretty impeccable manners, Scott’s hair was long and straight and dark around the sides and back of his head, and he looked to me like a Beatle. He wasn’t real tall and he was lean and he had moved to Albuquerque from somewhere in England, so I always thought that he was like an English dude, even though he was American born and had no accent.

Why Scott ended up in the concert band, I am not sure. Mr. Lipka- Eldorado’s head band instructor- obviously liked him and saw a lot of talent in him, and specifically liked his French Horn skills. What I do know is that while Scott was cordial and participated in class, Scott was also a little unsure socially (like me), and yet also very driven to master his instrument (unlike me). Very smart and musically talented, Scott was always prepared to play whatever part he was playing in our tunes. Scott got along with everyone well enough, but never really goofed around a whole lot, or flirted around like a lot of dudes our age. Scott was in school to learn, and in band to become a musician. And he would have his tense days, when something was eating him up inside, usually related to music and some stanza or progression he was trying to learn that he could not perfect. Scott was friendly and pleasant, but I could see at times he was at a loss trying to understand some of the interests or behaviors of other kids. And I know he was made fun of a time or two by others because they didn’t quite get his aloofness or social awkwardness or seriousness. We just kinda chatted day by day, became friends, and quietly understood each other as a few different-kind-of-dudes.

Eventually, Scott would be moved up into the intermediate band later our freshman year, and then join the Wind Ensemble next year. (I kind of followed Scott on that path over those two years, but less because I was this incredible artist. Rather, I was a hard-to-find tuba guy Lipka needed providing support under his featured students and stars.)

Late in our freshman year, Scott and I hung out together a few times outside of school, and I have a peculiar memory wandering in tunnels and in a network of huge storm drains that were being put in the ground in a developing area in Albuquerque’s Northeast Heights. For whatever reason, we decided to hike around in these 10′ tall concrete tubes for a few hours one afternoon, freaking ourselves out in the process, and seeking whatever terrors actually lived in the underground labyrinth. We were geeky nerdy band kids wandering the dungeons near some undiscovered dragon’s lair, chucking bottles and dirt clods at unseen specters when we chanced across them.

In our sophomore year, Scott and I were still band mates, sitting near one another, but Scott continued to dive deeper into his studies with his instrument. I was delving deeper into the Eldorado social scene, and I kinda skated by in band that year after marching season. I didn’t practice enough to excel as a tubist, and I was developing interest in other school activities. Scott just continued to excel as a musician, taking up the trombone to complement his french horn skills.

If I am not wrong, I think Scott went on to become a McDonald’s All-American musician in his own right.

After my sophomore year, I quit band to do some other things. I lost touch with Scott, and a number of other closer band friends, but I knew Scott would excel in music.

Evidently, Scott did excel in music, and he also excelled in teaching and working with people, because I looked him up online a little while ago, and I learned a few things about him:

• He ended up studying music at the University of Miami, and at the University of Michigan.
• He ended becoming a celebrated music teacher in the public schools in Mesa, Arizona, after his graduation from Michigan, where he taught, among other things, violin to reluctant school kids.
• And he ended up loved by those who learned from him and worked with him there in Mesa.

I know these things about Scott because people noted these things about him in eulogy. In 1998, Scott was killed in an automobile accident, and evidently his memorial service was well-attended and received lead attention on the news the evening of the day it was held. Scott, 31 at the time, had been married for three-and-some years at the time of his death.

What struck me most about finding information about Scott and his life online was simply this: Scott lived his life well. He cared about his character, he cared about his craft, and he cared about people. If you read the article below, you will agree with me that Scott left a major impact on the lives he touched.

Evidently, earlier on in life, he left an impact on mine.

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For whatever reason, some people stand out for you in life more than others, if only because you shared an insane moment or two with them, or you met at an unusual place, or because you just clicked when you first connected. Some people stay in your memory because they were hard to be around, and others stay because they were easy to know.

Scott has stood out in my memory because we shared a place and time together for a while, because he- like me- was a little different, and because he was nice.

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Obituary News Article | Gravestone