Beyond The Remaining: What Twenty Years Taught Us About Building Excellence
- Jeremy Earnhart
- 6 days ago
- 2 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
The Remaining at 20: A Multimedia Retrospective
The Remaining wasn't about a marching show. It was about what happens when a school district invests in children long enough for excellence to become the expectation.
Beyond The Remaining preserves the story of a remarkable marching season while exploring the leadership, culture, instruction, and community that made it possible—and what today's educational leaders can still learn from it.
This isn't just about a marching show.
It's about the kind of excellence that many outstanding school programs build when students, educators, parents, and communities invest in one another over time.
Great performances don't emerge by accident. They are the visible result of years of leadership, instruction, planning, community support, and sustained investment in children.
In education, we often celebrate extraordinary teachers or extraordinary students.
Less often do we ask a different question:
What happens when an entire school district commits to excellence over decades?
While this series begins with one remarkable marching season in HEB ISD, its purpose is much broader: to explore how sustained investment in students creates cultures of excellence in schools and communities everywhere.
Were you a performer, parent, volunteer, staff member, educator, administrator, or other stakeholder?
Contribute to the Archive
When did you realize this group was different?
What do you remember first?
What did nobody outside the band ever see?
What lesson has stayed with you for twenty years?
What would you tell today's students?
Contribute to the archive:
300–800 word essays
Photos
Programs
Handwritten notes
Drill charts
Audio recordings
Videos
Rehearsal memories
Anything that helps preserve the story.
Please include:
Your name
Your role (student, parent, staff, volunteer, etc.)
Graduation year (if applicable)
A description of what you're sharing
Permission for School Music Consulting to publish and/or quote your submission
Coming Throughout the 2026 Marching Season
July — Building the Foundation
August — Summer Band
September — Friday Nights
October — The Competitive Journey
November — Grand Nationals
Winter — Twenty Years Later
Feature articles
Oral histories
Archived video
Staff interviews
Student reflections
Parent perspectives
Design retrospectives
Leadership lessons
"Where Are They Now?" profiles
This is not a retrospective about competitions. It is a retrospective about building young people—and the school district, educators, families, and community that made that possible.
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About This Project
Beyond The Remaining is an ongoing multimedia retrospective documenting the twentieth anniversary of L.D. Bell High School's 2006 production, The Remaining. Through archival materials, interviews, and personal reflections, the project explores what today's educational leaders can learn from one community's long-term investment in children.
If you have materials or memories you'd like to contribute, please contact:
Jeremy Earnhart, Ed.D.
Former Director of Bands, L.D. Bell High School (1998–2009); former Director of Fine Arts, Arlington ISD; former President & CEO, Music for All; Founder, School Music Consulting.
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