Who knows, jokes Paul Varley, Wydown Middle School band director and Clayton School District fine arts coordinator. Had he not lost his brand new winter hat in church when he was in third grade, he may have grown up to play the trumpet.

But as it turned out, he felt so bad about losing the hat that he told his parents to hold off buying him a trumpet. It was too expensive. Instead of starting to play an instrument in third grade, he would wait.

“My parents didn’t have a lot of money, so losing that hat was a pretty big deal,” says Varley. “Then, by the time I was in fifth grade, they said, ‘Enough with worrying about losing the hat’ and encouraged me to start with an instrument. By then I decided on the clarinet because my mom had these records with Big Band clarinet players like Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw and Woody Herman. They sounded so cool.”

Regardless of instrument, what has remained constant throughout Varley’s life is a love and appreciation for music and music education. Growing up in Pittsburgh, Varley played in the school band. Everyone in his family sang.

“When we would go on long car trips, instead of asking, ‘Are we there yet?’ we would just start singing,” he says. “My parents sang in the school choir. At family gatherings, my Aunt Ruth would sit at the organ in the dining room and we would gather around and all sing. I never had private [music] lessons until I got to college. There was always a musical atmosphere at home but it wasn’t a hard-working musical atmosphere. We weren’t sitting around practicing all the time, we just did it for fun.”

At Penn State University, Varley was a music education major and played clarinet in the marching band, concert band and wind ensemble. His first airplane trip was to attend a bowl game in New Orleans as part of Penn State’s band.

He has a master’s in music education from Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville and a doctorate degree in teaching and learning processes from University of Missouri-St. Louis.

Varley, 59, taught for 14 years in North Dakota before coming to Wydown Middle in 1992, where he is one of the district’s five band directors. He teaches beginning flute and clarinet, beginning 7th grade band and leads the 8th grade band. As the district’s fine arts coordinator, he works with teachers in all arts disciplines to coordinate curriculums, assist with projects and field questions from administrators.

Varley believes arts education is a measure of the success of any civilization or culture. “When you look at history and what’s left behind from a certain period, it is the arts that standout,” he says. “Take the Renaissance period. The first thing that pops into your mind is the artwork, sculpture, architecture and music. If you say what was going on in the world of science during that time, right off the top of my head I can’t tell you.

“The other thing is that the arts increase the creativity of students. Obviously, any type of art takes a lot of self-discipline, which then carries over to other parts of your life. In music or drama, you have to work with other people, which also transfers to other parts of your life because collaboration is so important in so many disciplines.

“And then there’s just the personal enjoyment the arts bring. When you think about the major events in your life, they all incorporate music or some kind of artwork.  When someone has a funeral, there’s music; a wedding, there’s music; birthday, there’s music; graduation, there’s music. You take art out of your everyday life and you’ve got nothing left. You’ve got everyone living in a box and it’s going to be real quiet.”

Varley, who is married and has two adult daughters, both of whom majored in theater in college, currently sings in the choir at his church and performs with a small doo-wop group that sings at retirement homes. He also plays clarinet occasionally with the Starlighters Swinging Big Band, based in Washington, Mo.

He says that as an arts educator, making a long-term impact on his students’ lives is what matters most to him.

“Take the last class of eighth-grade students I taught in North Dakota,” he says. “They would be 37 years old right now. My measure of success is those kids, who are now adults, what are their kids doing? Is music still an important part of their lives?

“You can say success is that your bands do well at competitions and you have a lot of kids taking private music lessons. But I measure it long-term, what’s down the road. So by the time you’re done teaching, did you have an effect on somebody’s life in such a way they want to share that same experience with their kids? When they get out of school, do they have a love of the arts? Do they want to participate, even from the standpoint of being an observer? Do they like it that much that they are willing to pay to go to a show or concert?

“I always hope our students at Clayton get involved in the arts in school,” he continues. “If you’re drawing a lot of kids into your arts programs -- and we do at Clayton--  something must be going right. But I think my strength has been getting kids excited about music and the arts so that it stays with them for the long haul.”

For information about Wydown Middle School and the Clayton School District, visit claytonschools.net