John & Patti Aylsworth

A Little History
Part 1
By: John Aylsworth
August 11th, 2005

When Helen and Gilbert Aylsworth arrived in French Lick in 1938, there was no Springs Valley High School. The Blackhawks were still twenty years in the future. There was no band program at French Lick High School, so the superintendent had summoned the Aylsworths from Hazard High School in Kentucky. So began an almost seventy year odyssey and three generations of music educators in the "Valley".

Gilbert had built an outstanding program in Hazard between 1934-1938. His innovative approach was to buy instruments cheaply and rent them to students for the nominal fee of fifty cents per year. Gilbert had a unique ability to repair all types of musical instruments, which he continued almost to the end of his life. Over the years this saved the school system tens of thousands of dollars in repair costs. The French Lick school administration purchased all the instruments from the Aylsworths and rented them to students with profits poured back into the band program.

Gilbert had a warm, friendly, open personality yet maintained firm discipline in class. In one year he built a band of seventy members which was unheard of in a tiny school the size of French Lick. Over the next few years the French Lick Red Devils became an oustanding playing ensemble with summer concerts, radio performances and local parades. In 1948 they played the Misssouri Waltz for President Harry Truman.

One of Gilbert's legacies, in addition to his band director son and grandson, is the school instrument rental program. The program continues to this day and is unique in Indiana and perhaps the nation. Any student can participate in the band program without purchasing an expensive instrument. Although Gilbert passed away in 1993, his imprint on the "Valley'' still resounds any time you hear the the sound of Brigade echoing off the Southern Indiana hills.