Cook named to Marching Band Hall of Fame

By Chris Spangler  

Contributor  

The Wisconsin School Music Association has announced that retired Fort Atkinson High School band teacher Tom Cook will be inducted into its Marching Band Hall of Fame.

Cook will be presented with his Hall of Fame plaque during the WSMA State Marching Band Championships Saturday, Oct. 16, at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater’s Perkins Stadium.

Another plaque will be on permanent display at the Wisconsin Center for Music Education in Waunakee.

“Mr. Cook has played an integral part in marching activity in the State of Wisconsin for decades,” WSMA program director Erica Ruppert said in announcing the 2020 honoree.

“His work as an educator, adjudicator and WSMA Marching Band Committee member has impacted thousands of students and fostered the growth of the marching arts in Wisconsin.”

Cook’s involvement with marching bands goes back to 1971, when he was a freshman at Rock Falls High School in Illinois. His older sister convinced him to join the championship Marching Rockets, then under the direction of Mid-American Competing Band Directors Association (MACBDA) Hall of Famer Richard C. Davis. 

“His love for band and music flourished and he hasn’t looked back,” Ruppert said of Cook.

In 1974, Cook joined the Blue Stars Drum & Bugle Corps from La Crosse and enrolled at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse to study music education and march with the UW-La Crosse Chiefs (now the Screaming Eagles).

He earned his bachelor’s degree in 1979 and began his teaching career shortly after at Stockton, Ill., where he taught band. While there, he began the marching and jazz band programs, which finished several times in the top 10 of their class in Illinois High School Association Music Sweepstakes. 

In 1984, he became the high school band teacher in Prairie du Chien. The Blackhawk Brigade High School marching band was formed under his direction, and soon thereafter, it began participating in the MACBDA summer circuit and Wisconsin fall shows, with a culminating performance at the 1985 WSMA State Marching Band Championships. 

Prairie du Chien High School was awarded back-to-back Class A Championships in 1987 and 1988.

Cook arrived at Fort Atkinson High School in 1990, succeeding longtime band director Grayson Babcock.

The Fort Atkinson bands participated in WSMA activities, placing first in the Class AA State Championships in 2003. In addition, the marching band finished in the top three in Class AA or AAA multiple times over 23 years of participation. 

The jazz program was nationally recognized, earning top status at the UW-La Crosse, UW-Whitewater and UW-Eau Claire Jazz Festivals multiple times, along with 21-straight Division I awards at WSMA State Festivals.

The concert band also earned top honors. It toured England in 2008, and presented many performances at Walt Disney World in Florida through the years.

Cook received his master’s degree from VanderCook College of Music in Chicago in 2001. 

In addition to marching and jazz band, Cook taught concert band, pep band, music theory, orchestral winds and show choir combo, and was the music department chair until his retirement in 2014. 

While at Fort Atkinson High School, Cook was nominated for the Herb Kohl Foundation Award and the Wildermuth Award of Excellence.

Previous awards include the 1985 Prairie du Chien Teacher of the Year and February 2014 Rotary Educator of the Month. He was recognized as July 2014 Channel 3000 Top-Notch Teacher, and the WSMA and WMEA presented him with the Wisconsin Award for Excellence in Teaching Music in 2014. 

“Cook is also a highly sought after marching band adjudicator through CSJA, MACBDA and WSMA and an honors band clinician for conference festivals in Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin,” Ruppert said. “WSMA is privileged to have worked with Mr. Cook in multiple capacities through the WSMA State Marching Band Committee and the WSMA High School State Honors Music Project. 

“As stated by a teaching colleague, “I’ve worked with many wonderful music educators in the past 30 years. None as fine as Tom Cook,’” Ruppert added.

Cook is not the first area teacher to be inducted into the WSMA Marching Band Hall of Fame. The honoree for 2016 was Dr. Glenn C. Hayes, director of bands at UW-Whitewater, including its Warhawk Marching Band.