Edwin Carter, the Richmond Senior High School Director of Band, conducts the Richmond Concert band during the 2022 RSHS Band and Choral Concert at the Cole Auditorium on Dec. 12, 2022.
Photos courtesy of Mark Bell
Edwin Carter, the Richmond Senior High School Director of Band, plays the National Anthem at a home football game on Sept. 23, 2022, at Raider Stadium.
Photos courtesy of Mark Bell
ROCKINGHAM — Edwin Carter is a 40-year-old military brat who said he didn’t have one place he called home growing up.
He has lived worldwide, from Germany and South Korea to Texas and South Carolina, but since September 2019, he’s been at the helm of the Raider Marching and Concert bands.
As the Richmond Senior High School Director of Band, Carter has already made a huge impact on an entire county by sharing his love of music and by inspiring a new generation of musicians to replace him.
The 2001 Pine Forest High School graduate has been busy growing a music community and cultivating relationships with the students to allow them to develop into musicians when most people in the county thought the Raider Band was a dying organization.
“My primary goal when I first came to Richmond was to create an environment where my students would always feel welcome and be a part of a band family,” he said. “I wanted to give them a place in school where they could be themselves and feel safe for it, as long as they were not trying to hurt the band family.”
Carter’s musical story began as a child when he recalled stealing his father’s headphones on an old reel-to-reel player and listening to whatever his dad was listening to last. In those days, Carter was into sports like most boys growing up until a significant life event altered his path in life choices.
“It wasn’t until my mother passed in 1995 that my dad convinced me to try playing an instrument,” he said. “My dad sat me down and had a conversation with me that no matter how old I would get, I would always have music.”
Carter recalled the exact words his father had with him on that day. Words that would shape him into the individual he is today and his love to mentor young students in his craft.
“Sports are great, but you never see older people participating,” his dad told him. “They are always either in the stands or on the sidelines telling the young people how or what they should do. But you see people of all ages performing together at any concert, from the classics to popular music. You have a punch clock with sports, but you never have to stop with music.”
After Carter moved to North Carolina to finish high school at Pine Forest, he met the school’s band director Ryan McPhail. He said McPhail pointed him to the journey to band director himself.
During his senior year, Carter told McPhail he wanted to go to school to become a band director.
“Are you sure,” McPhail asked the young senior student. That honesty made Carter even more connected to music.
“I loved all of my band directors, but he was the one that made me feel really special about band,” he said. “He would tell me little things about the world of music that my other band directors really didn’t tell me.”
How did Carter end up at Richmond Senior High School? Carter said it was a weird path, but one that brought him to Richmond County.
“I lost a lot of motivation in high school for various reasons, but music always made school worth going to for me,” he said. “I did not get accepted into any schools right away because I had poor marks in school and waited until my junior and senior years actually to start putting in the work; I needed to get good grades.”
He first attended the Spartan College of Aeronautics, located in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was established initially to provide pilots and technicians for Spartan Aircraft Company. Carter’s dreams of being a band director were put on hold.
“It was the only school that would accept me but on the condition that my first semester I maintained a good academic standing,” he said.
Carter did graduate with a 3.5-grade point average and certification to work on commercial aircraft. Unfortunately, the events of 9/11 happened two years before he graduated, so companies were not hiring mechanics.
“So, I decided to join the Air Force,” he said.
After his first enlistment contract ended, he left the military and started chasing his dream of becoming a band director. That dream eventually landed him here at Richmond Senior.
A few decades ago, the Raider Marching Band had several hundred young musicians, and the home football games were the stage for the Pride of Richmond County. Today, Carter has been increasing the numbers and giving the community something to be proud of.
He said music is vital in education because it gives instant feedback on how hard work and dedication can drastically improve one’s performance.
“It also teaches the importance of leadership within your group by showing that if one section or even one person does not do their part, it will strongly affect the overall production of whatever we are doing,” he said. “Leaders have to learn how to motivate without degrading, and followers learn that they may not agree with the leadership, but for the sake of the entire group, they have to do their part.”
Doing their part means following one simple rule: student musicians must leave their differences at the band room door — no exceptions. It’s a rule he feels very strongly about and gives no wiggle room for defiance of it.
“We all look different, sound different, and believe different things,” he said. “But when we perform together, none of that matters because everyone only sees the band, and when one messes up, we all mess up. So, we watch out for one another because we are all here to look and sound good.”
As the band has grown over the past several years, Carter said the formula for success in increasing numbers participating in music is trust, understanding, and teamwork.
“I want all of my students to understand that being in a band is not a director vs. student relationship,” he said. “It’s a team effort, we all have to do our part to be successful, and we will not always have the best performances, but as long as we are continuing to grow and learn, the bad performances will soon start to fade away as we build friendships and traditions.”
He tells parents that in music, there is something for everyone. His students have fun. They are seen laughing and enjoying themselves while playing music. That laughter and team building is essential for his students with a heavy load of practices and performances in the community.
“Otherwise, they will find something else to do,” he said about teenagers and their needs to connect to something and self-identify. The high school band is that magical ingredient of the Raider Magic.
Carter said he hopes his students learn and retain teamwork, team building, and leadership skills for their journey after graduating high school.
“The understanding of how to work with people from all walks of life is going to be something that I feel is going to be important for the future,” he said.
Carter said music is an excellent option for college as music scholarships are available for just performing with the school’s marching band or concert band.
“They do not even have to major in music; they just have to have a decent understanding of their instrument of choice,” he said.
One of Carter’s short-term goals is to get more Richmond County students interested in joining the marching and concert bands.
“My long-term goal is to have a standard of excellence in the band to where the band will be able to perform at Bands of America again as well as perform at MPA and receive superior ratings,” he said.
His students play at every possible event to showcase their musicianship and be ambassadors for the high school and county.
“I preach to the students when we go somewhere, we are ‘Always Classy,’” he said. “When people see how we act in public, they form opinions and accusations on how our county behaves. So, it is important that we always treat everyone and anyone with love and respect, even when they aren’t respectful to us.”
One of last year’s highlights was during a home football game against Scotland High School. Unbeknownst to the general public, both high school bands took to the field as one to play America’s National Anthem. The loud cadence of the dual drumlines caught the entire stadium off guard, and they stood in shock to see a massive formation of musicians walking under the lights of Raider Stadium. Raiders and Fighting Scots were one unified musical formation.
Carter said that event was important for both counties to show that students could set aside their differences on the field and be friends through the power of music.
“I felt that this was extremely important to not only my students but our neighbors to show that though we are rivals, these are still young adults, and there does not need to be any animosity toward one another,” he said.
Carter said the two bands understood what it took to get to perform for the audience on the football field. It was much more than a football game, but an experience he hopes resonates in their minds for years.
“They understand that the short six to twelve minutes they perform on the field is a culmination of hours of learning, fixing, fine-tuning, and then changing,” he said. “They understand what it’s like to be a ‘Band Kid.’”
Whether at a football or basketball game, the next time you hear the Raider Marching Band playing the fight song, remember that music connects people and bridges obstacles. Stand up and cheer on young musicians who have grown as young adults impacting a community one note at a time.
