Meet Worland's new band teacher

WORLAND – With the new school year starting, Washakie County School District 1 is seeing some new faces in the classroom.

This year, Worland students have four new faces teaching them. Educators from across the country are now teaching subjects including Middle and High school band, Zach Lempka with elementary physical education (P.E.), Emma Christoffersen for life skills and Stine Turegon as the new speech education teacher.

While sad to see old teachers go, the new additions to the classrooms are being greeted with smiling faces.

Frank Harding is now taking over for middle and high school band. He's from Indianapolis, Indiana.

This is Harding's first year in a full-time teaching position, and he is currently doing most of his work at Worland Middle School. However, Harding has plenty of experience with marching band and has spent the last two summers teaching competitive marching band in Crawfordsville, Indiana.

Harding went to school at Indiana State University in Terre Haute. His favorite thing about teaching is the look of wonder that students get when they make a breakthrough with their instruments.

"My educational philosophy is that music is a subject where differences can be highlighted and respected. Students should be able to come into my band room and feel like the worries of their day do not matter there. My goal as a music teacher is to give students the opportunity to grow and learn and simply... 'Be' through music," Harding said.

According to Harding, he decided to become a music teacher because of the impact his high school orchestra teacher had on him as a freshman. "He was the first teacher I had to show interest in me as a person and not me as a test score," Harding said. "I decided that I wanted to be that teacher towards my students."