Six wind instruments have been donated to the Haines School band program in memory of Sally Bridge, a spirited graduate with a lifetime passion for music.The instruments include three new ones and a clarinet Bridge played most of her life.
“Sally was extremely musical. She had an alto sax at one time that moved off and on fishing boats in various villages… She played her autoharp at the Alaska Folk Festival. She would walk into a bar and play her clarinet. She was a Bush Alaska girl,” sister Colleen Bridge said in an interview this week from Anchorage.
Sally Bridge graduated from Haines High School in 1967 and died in 2008. Her senior yearbook entry shows she played in the school band all four years of high school, and performed with the pep band, chorus, drill team and cheerleaders. Her obituary described her as having a powerful singing voice and an outrageous sense of humor.
Colleen Bridge, a retired hospital executive who graduated Haines High School in 1971, said she had been thinking of a way to honor her sister, who traveled the world, worked a variety of jobs and lived in a dozen Alaska communities.
“I really miss her. There are a lot of things you can melodramatically do to honor a person who’s gone. Some of my earliest memories were singing with her and her making me sing harmony. She always had to sing the melody… I thought this would be a good thing to do for Sal.”
Sally’s clarinet, Bridge said, was one that her parents bought for use by another sister, Suzanne. Sally found it and made it her own, fooling her parents who thought the improved sound coming from the basement was her older sister’s playing. “She was a natural and she had the ear. I was 25 before I realized she couldn’t read music. She could play by ear incredibly.”
Colleen Bridge, who plays baritone sax and piano, contacted Haines School music teacher Kristy Totten about donating the clarinet, per Sally’s wishes, and offered an alto sax she had. But when she learned Haines students sometimes have to double up on instruments, she went shopping, adding a new baritone sax, tenor sax, and flute, plus a used French horn.
“I said (to Totten), ‘What else do you need?’ It just took off from there. I got on eBay and bought parts and repair kits. I found a good deal on a baritone sax and a tenor sax. It was a lot of fun,” Colleen said.
Bridge’s donation has filled a gap, Totten said this week. “I was short of some instruments at the start of the year. I mentioned that we needed an alto, baritone, and tenor sax and flute.”
The district has about 100 student instruments, and is building up its inventory, looking to develop a cycle for buying new ones, as a certain number get damaged or lost. Totten said her husband, Dr. John Totten, has helped rehabilitate about 60 instruments. “If it wasn’t for him fixing instruments, we’d be short. He saved us having to send a lot out.”
He has added pads and corks, fixed stuck valves, replaced springs, removed dents and done some minor welding, she said.
Totten said the band could use a few more flutes, an F-attachment trombone, an oboe, a drum set and a new piano. The school accepts donations of instruments that work and are in good shape, she said. Recent gifts have included trumpets, clarinets and an electric guitar, she said. “Some people drop them by the office and we don’t even know where they come from.”
Students in grades 5-6 are required to take band, which is an elective after that. By high school, most musicians have purchased their own instruments, she said.
Six Haines High School students who recently qualified for the All-State Music Festival Nov. 20-22 will meet with Bridge next month in Anchorage to thank her for her gift. The students – all choir members – include Kyle Klinger, Neil Little, Lindsey Jobbins, Rachel Haas, Olivia Wing, and Madeline Andriesen. Dylan Palmieri is an alternate.