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A band director took over a dwindling program, and is rebuilding.
He is good. (which is GOOD)
His is also doing the middle school, so he has control over both schools. (which is GOOD)

This school rates very high, GPA-wise.

He has only one tuba player (this student has not been diagnosed with any emotional nor abuse issues), he found one sousaphone that needed no repairs, but was missing the neck and tuning bits.
I located some bits for him, had a new King upper mouthpipe tube in stock, fabricated a King brace (1/4" cylindrical brass - just like those from the factory), assembled this for him (again, from parts), hit it with some brass enamel paint, got it to him super-quick, and charged him a considerably-lower-than if-assembled-by-Conn-Selmer price.

We picked up a bunch of repairs (quoted on previously) at the school today, and he showed me what the student did to that King neck:

OK...from having been used at a handful of football games, for ONE fall season:




bloke "This is the sort of reason that I do not and will not teach (no private students, no classroom teaching, and certainly no band-directing)."

You can also see that the male receiver is super super tarnished after only a couple of months of use, and of course it's gouged from them never loosening the tension screw on the sousaphone.

That dent is about a third to 40% deep, so I suspect they lost their temper and threw the neck.

I'll run into some very bright and mature young people when I do repairs for them as individuals. A few of them even have to take care of their siblings - because their parents are so dysfunctional, but the overwhelming majority seem to be more like whoever administered to this (newly-assembled) sousaphone neck between October and December.

... and no, I didn't expect that paint to last. That was just a one minute thing that I did, because the band director needed it and he had to leave.