(This article, reprinted with permission, featuring Janet Bez Ebert, class of 1953, appeared in the Eastside Messenger on November 24, 2003.)

OSU Band’s First Lady marches to own drummer
By John Matuszak
Eastside Editor

Early in life Janet Ebert learned you can only hit life’s high notes if you try.

The 1953 Bexley High School graduate has carried that lesson with her, overcoming barriers as a musician, teacher, composer and storyteller.

“They never pushed us beyond what we could do, but they set the bar very, very high,” Ebert said of her many teachers in music and other disciplines. “No one ever said no, you can’t do this.”

That confidence led Ebert to achieve many firsts, including being the first woman to play with the marching band at Ohio Stadium.

“They still call me The Band’s First Lady,” Ebert said.

“Almost everything I’ve done has been because someone asked me and I didn’t know better than to say I can’t do that,” Ebert said from her home in Urbana.

Ebert came back to her alma mater to talk to students as part of the Bexley Education Foundation’s Arts Month in Bexley Schools.

Much of the foundation of what she would accomplish in her life came from her experience in the Bexley schools, starting with her grade school experience at the old Main-Montrose building.

A stimulating home life also contributed to her future success.

Her father, Dr. Paul Bez, who died when she was 4, was chairman of the German department at Capital University, and played the flute. Her mother, Winifred, played the piano, and was active in the first Bexley Celebrations Committee.

Her stepfather, Dr Karl Busche, taught Greek, Latin and the sciences at Capital, held a seminary degree, was a record-setting athlete and had started the first orchestra at the university. During the summer, he helped build homes in Bexley.

Between them, her parents spoke eight languages and Sunday afternoons were filled with intellectual conversations.

Not surprisingly, a love of education and music stayed with Ebert.

“From the time I was 4, I knew I wanted to be a teacher,” she said. “Girls were coming to our house to play school, and I didn’t realize it but I was learning to read. I could read before I went to kindergarten.”

By her senior year in high school, Ebert had settled on a career teaching music.

The small-town high school provided myriad opportunities for involvement. Ebert played flute in the marching band, violin in the orchestra (“very badly,” she admitted), sang with the choir and girls ensemble, played piano in a dance band, and performed in operettas.

She was a member of the Art Club and manager for the hockey team.

“I just couldn’t bear to not be a part of everything,” Ebert said.

Her affection for the Ohio State Marching Band started early on, when she would take her radio to her room and listen to the halftime shows on WOSU. “I loved the band long before I was a part of it,’

But when Ebert attended OSU, marching band was a man’s world. This did not keep her from participating, and she served as the band’s Librarian and secretary, traveling with the group to the Rose Bowl.

“It was a different era, and there weren’t girls in the band and we accepted it,” Ebert said. “We were known as the quiet generation, although we were anything but quiet. It was not a time of agitation or protest.”

Women weren’t enlisted in the OSU Marching Band until 1973.  By that time, Ebert had been active for many years with the OSU Band Alumni Association, serving as its first secretary and continuing for 20 years.

The band alumni asked that they be allowed to choose the first woman musician to walk onto the field at the Horseshoe, and they tapped Ebert for the honor - “It was humongously exciting. I had heard people talk about it, what it’s like coming down the ramp, but I had no idea. You think your heart is going to burst,” Ebert remembered.

The firsts didn’t end there. Ebert was the first (and possibly the only) woman to conduct the National Anthem at Ohio Stadium, in 1983.

She played with the Alumni Band at Ohio Stadium when she was eight months pregnant (probably another first, she speculated).  When the band members were required to kneel, all Ebert could think was “they’re going to get up and I’m going to roll over.”

But by that time, Ebert had been teaching band members for many years, and knew the moves.

Her teaching assignments have included Urbana University where she traveled across the country with their choir, as well as Springfield schools, where she chaired the music department.

She also continued her own education, earning a doctorate in music education from OSU when there were few women in graduate school.

As a special education teacher, Ebert realized the full power of music.

One student, confined to a wheelchair, had never spoken. During a music lesson, Ebert noticed the girl tapping her foot in time to the beat, and she brought a tub drum for the child to play with her foot.

“You could see it written all over her face. She was ecstatic,” Ebert said. “It was the first time she had communicated with her body. There were other teachers there, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the room.”

A disability that required Ebert to get off her feet led to her retirement from teaching.  But it hasn’t slowed her down.

She plays with the Urbana Community Band, has written plays, operettas and children’s songs, and has been a storyteller at numerous local events.

She continues to get together with the Alumni Band, which raises money for music scholarships.

Ebert urges budding artists to grab every chance that comes along.

“Don’t close your mind to any possibilities,” she said. “Take advantage of any experience in the arts.  It’s what I did, and still do. If there is an open door, you walk through it.”

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