It was the battle of the bandmasters.

Band director Trevor Ervin won the Young Bandmasters Award at the Kentucky Music Educators Annual Conference on February 8-10.

Ervin has helped dozens of students achieve goals and win awards, it is only fitting that he received one of his own. Achieving the Young Bandmasters award is not easy, Ervin and the band went above and beyond to be in contention. Although the Young Bandmasters Award is high praise for Ervin, he still has much planned for the future.

“This award means the hard work is paying off, and people are noticing,” said Ervin. This is the first time that Ervin has won an award for his hard work and dedication in music education.

Band student Serene Lewis has high praise for Ervin. “He has personally helped me tremendously. In 8 grade I planned on quitting band until he told me I wasn’t allowed to, and now I am so glad that I didn’t,” said Lewis. Lewis plans on being apart of the band program until she graduates.

Before the award was presented to Ervin, multiple band groups of his accomplished were many things this year. “The band had several big achievements this year: the marching band won a regular season contest, we were top eight at state and were the MSBA 3A Grand Champion. The Wind Ensemble was selected to play at KMEA State Conference, and that is a huge accomplishment,” said Ervin. The combination of these achievements caused voters to vote for  Bullitt East. “All those things combined together for a successful year, and Phi Beta Mu (the group that gives the award) recognized our accomplishments in this way,” said Ervin.

Although this is a great achievement for Ervin, he is not completely satisfied, “This is a win for our program and we will continue to push to new heights and greater things,” said Ervin. Ervin and the band will continue to compete in competitions and take their talent to farther levels.