Sometimes, you never know the impact you will have on someone's life until their goals are realised.
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For Gary Bell, getting his students into music and initiating would would end up being the Griffith Junior Concert Band set a ripple effect across many of their lives, something which he only fully comprehended on Monday at their reunion.
Jodie Blackshaw, one of those budding musicians back in the 80s, is now an internationally acclaimed composer, something she attributes to her early exposure to the clarinet in the band.
Returning to Griffith all the way from Victoria, Ms Blackshaw said without Mr Bell's drive to instill music, the pathway of her life would have been dramatically different.
"He had a huge impact on my life," she explained.
"My passion for music was unearthed, and the flow on effect is phenomenal."
Coming together on Monday, Matthew Woodward, Robyn Pike, Michelle Revelant, Stuart Heffer, Lynda Medcalf and Toni Howard reminisced over photo albums brought along my Mr Bell's wife Sandra.
In an unexpected turn of events, Mr Bell was unable to make the reunion having been taken to Griffith Base Hospital earlier that morning.
However he "wouldn't miss it for the world", Facetiming in from his hospital bed to chat with his former students.
Mr Bell realised the future was in the children after joining the town back in the early 80s and noticing the group was aging.
He raided cupboards and found enough instruments to dish out to his maths students.
From Kapooka band visits, annual band gathering events across the Riverina, with jazz ensembles and other student-teaching groups, the band at it's peak had 60 members.
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"This has been a real trip down memory lane... As the kids grew with their music, I could see the effects spreading out further," he said.
"I knew what I'd given them would be hugely beneficial, and that many of them would do something with it. And to see them here today, music teachers, composers, musicians, the feeling is unbelievable."
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