GHS student, talented tuba player chosen for European music tour

Editor’s note: McKoy Dobbs is currently accepting sponsorships and donations from businesses and local residents to help fund a trip to Europe that he was offered as part of the Missouri Ambassador of Music program. The trip costs $7,000. Details on how to donate are included at the end of this article. 

There are pivotal points in most people’s lives, times when a person can say, it was this exact moment that changed it all. It was this day, or this choice, or this life’s circumstance that moved my life in a direction that it might not have otherwise gone. 

For some it may be graduating from college, moving to a new city or meeting an influential person. For Gainesville High School senior McKoy Dobbs, the life-changing moment came when his home’s well went dry. 

That was when his life pivoted and brought him to where he is today, an accomplished musician and admirable student who was recently chosen to represent the governor as a Missouri Ambassador of Music, a honor that includes embarking on a once-in-a-lifetime tour through Europe where he will visit and perform in cities that some of the most influential musicians called home. 

“It’s funny to think about...I’m going to visit five other countries soon - and then I’m off to college for music, and it all fell into my lap with the drying up of that well,” McKoy said in a recent interview with the Times. 

An interest that grew into a passion

McKoy says his early life was a series of constant changes that included a lot of moving and a lot of various people entering and exiting his life. 

With life as a constant churn, McKoy didn’t have a lot of stability as a child to find hobbies or passions, and he mostly remained quiet and shy, keeping to himself. Instead of socializing or spending time engaged in a favorite past time, he focused on just getting through the basics of the day-to-day life.

But when he was in middle school, McKoy says his father had a girlfriend named Brooke who made a big impact on his life, whether she knew it at the time or not. Brooke talked to McKoy about her time in the high school band. As she described days of playing music and performing, McKoy was enthralled. “I just fell in love,” he said of the new-found interest. 

The only problem was that Junction Hill, the middle school that McKoy was attending, did not have a school band. But his interest was piqued all the same.

Joining band

Just as McKoy was wishing that he could join a school band, there was a crisis at home. The well that provided the family’s house with water had completely dried up. The issue meant that McKoy was moving once again, this time in October of his seventh grade year. 

He and his father landed in West Plains, and McKoy began attending West Plains Middle School. The bright side of the move was that the new school offered a band. McKoy excitedly joined.

“I was about a year and a half behind my peers as the West Plains beginning band usually starts in sixth grade,” McKoy explained. As a seventh grader, McKoy was put into the beginning band with the sixth grade students despite his age, which caused him some anxiety. “...not being with anyone I knew was weird for a little anti-social middle schooler.”

But, McKoy fought through the awkwardness and found that the little pique of interest that came from Brooke soon developed into a full-fledged passion. The more he played, the more he knew he wanted to pursue music. 

“I spent my time at home and in between things at school learning all the material I would have learned in intermediate band,” he said. 

With dedication and the extra practice, McKoy got better - and at the end of that band year, he performed for his instructors. Impressed with the improvement he’d made, they allowed him to skip to the advanced band, the course that students his own age were enrolled.

The pandemic - and a move

Then in the spring of 2020 with the covid-19 pandemic ramping up in the United States, West Plains School District, along with all other area schools, closed down for an extra week in an attempt to slow the virus’s spread. McKoy spent the time off with his grandparents, Curt and Sheila Dobbs, at their Pontiac home. 

His school, like others across the country, delayed the return to class week-to-week until it was finally announced that students would not return to classes for the remainder of the 2019-20 school year. Instead, school officials hoped students would resume class in the fall. McKoy said that he found stability at his grandparents’ home, and at some point during his stay it was decided that he would continue living with them here in Ozark County. 

The school year opened in the fall of 2020, and McKoy enrolled in his freshman year at Gainesville High School. The move was a bit of an adjustment with a much smaller school population, but he soon found his place in the rural high school and within its band. His confidence grew, and he became a much more social student. 

In the last four years at GHS, McKoy’s talent and dedication have shined, as have his accolades. He’s competed at the state level in the solo division for two years in a row. He’s been a first chair tuba player three years in a row in the all-district and all-state bands. Last year, he was one of only three Missouri high school band players to be invited to the University of Missouri campus for the Mizzou All-Juniors Band.

In addition to his impressive musical talent, McKoy is a gifted student and member of the National Honor Society. He’s also joined the school’s drama club and has been an active member of the Twin  Lakes Playhouse Community Theatre in Mountain Home, Arkansas, where he’s been cast in a variety of roles. “I have just fell in love with the feeling of performing... It’s been a very stable thing in my life that I can control,” he said. 

Future plans - and a surprise honor

As he’s worked through his senior year, McKoy has been making plans for his future. He hopes to attend the University of Missouri School of Music in Columbia next fall to begin a music performance degree and ultimately work toward a career as a professional composer, director and musician.

As if that is not exciting enough, one day this summer, McKoy received a letter from Missouri State Governor Mike Parson. The correspondence explained that the governor had taken notice of McKoy’s musical talent and dedication and extended an offer to him to become a Missouri Ambassador of Music. As part of the elite group of high school ambassador musicians, McKoy was invited on a five-country European performance tour, slated for next summer.

“I was shocked at first,” McKoy said. “...I think naturally someone who has something they’re good at doubts themselves quite a lot.” McKoy said he’s no exception and had doubted himself a lot over the years, wondering if he was actually talented or just lucky. “But that letter was proof to myself that all the work I’ve put into music has paid off.”

The Ambassadors of Music trip will begin in England with students visiting the sights in London including the Windsor Castle, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey and the Tower of London. As part of the ambassador’s program, students will have the honor of performing in well-respected concert venues in England and the other European cities they visit. 

They’ll leave London on a high speed Eurostar train and travel to Paris, France at 186 miles per hour. In France, student performers will have time to explore the city by foot, taking in cuisine, art, architecture and culture. They’ll visit the city center, walk along the Champs-Élysées, a well known avenue in France, and visit the Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower and the Notre Dame Catherdral, where they will see the structure in stages of being rebuilt. 

They’ll also visit several performance venues including Église Saint-Séverin, L’eglise de Madeleine and Jardin d’Acclimatation.

After France, the students will travel into Switzerland, visiting charming towns of Crans-Montana – Montreux, Täsch and Zermatt. The Swiss portion of the trip will conclude with the students breaking bread with locals in an authentic Swiss evening meal. 

Germany will be up next, and the students will be stationed in Rothenburg where they’ll have time to explore the city and will travel to Dachau, a concentration camp memorial site, honoring victims of the Holocaust. 

The final stop will be in Austria, the country McKoy is most excited about visiting. As the birthplace of classical music, it’s no surprise. “I’m really looking forward to going to Vienna...to perform and walk the same streets that the most popular classical composers walked themselves - Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Haydn,” McKoy said. “Vienna is such an important city to the music world, and it’ll be our last performance in Austria, so it will be the most important to us.”

Help by donating to the trip fund

“I work very hard to succeed in all that I do, but hard work alone cannot pay for my trip to Europe,” he said. 

McKoy is currently raising the $7,000 needed to attend the European tour, and donations are being accepted through the GoFundMe website (visit www.gofundme.com and search for McKoy Dobbs.) Any help is gratefully appreciated, McKoy said.