On the wall of Karen "Sarge" Sargent Rachels' Big Bear Valley home hangs a bassoon. A bassoon that once led parades, one of only two that Montana's Butte High School possessed. A bassoon that had no official bassoon teacher for it, but Henry Schiesser, Sarge's father, made due.

What the enigmatic band leader made was one of the best high school music programs in the nation for 18 years between 1939 and 1957.

In July, Sarge, director of Big Bear Valley's Community Arts Theater Society, headed to her hometown for her 50th high school reunion. When she called to R.S.V.P., the woman who answered was more thrilled to hear that the high school valedictorian's mother, Jean Schiesser, was coming. The town went into a whirl preparing for Jean's visit.

The quiet 89-year-old woman is the real star. She and Henry brought harmony to a Montana mining town torn apart by economic disparity.

In an essay written by an unknown author in Linn Benton Community College's, "The Eloquent Umbrella," a journal for the arts, the prose tells of that "precious bassoon" with heartfelt remembrance that would have made Henry radiate delight.

"Mr. Schiesser had all the enthusiasm of the Music Man in River City," the writer says. The high school band's concerts not only united the sons and daughters of mine owners and workers in the midst of heated strikes, they performed for sell-out audiences.

Jim Shea, a former student and retired music educator, grew up in a federal housing project with a father and uncle who worked the copper mines. His grandmother took him to Henry in the fifth grade to learn violin. By eighth grade, Shea played with the high school band.

"What was so amazing about them was the precision, the absolute perfection, the showmanship, the imagination," Shea says. As a retired music teacher, Shea admires their unique way of teaching. "They had such a flair for show business."

Shea recalls a common site: Jean in the corner of the room, at her piano, ear to the radio. She did all the musical arrangements, all the block scoring by hand, adding contemporary hits to the repertoire. By the end of the week, the band was ready to perform songs. Shea remembers perfecting The Chords' 1954 hit "Sh-Boom" and more.

The musicians performed at Fourth of July parades, football halftimes-often overshadowing the zeal of a touchdown-and were the first non-California high school band to lead the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena. They performed for military officers, congressmen, state governors and U.S. presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman.

The success of the Schiessers and the high school bands took root in the 1920s. Henry, a violin prodigy, became a concert violinist. He worked in Chicago playing the pit during silent movies. Then the Great Depression crept into the plot.

Henry saw an ad for a music director at a small high school in Glasgow, Mont. He rented a room from a woman with two young children and set off with bells and whistles to infuse his students with his passion for melody and showmanship, combined with the spirit of vaudeville.

Eight years later, Henry fell in love with and married the daughter of his landlord, Jean. The two built a music program at a school Sarge describes as in “the sticks." A nearby school sought out Henry and stole him away based on his reputation.

The family packed up and headed to Butte, Mont., a copper mining town where they brought a special glow of enthusiasm to a town mired in dispute. "My parents were ecumenical in their teachings to the kids," Sarge says.

The school administration allotted an unprecedented amount of funds to the music program due to its popularity. "It was very unusual," Sarge says, looking back. "It became the focus of the town."

Henry wasn't on hand for the recent celebration, having died in the 1960s. July 16 was declared Jean Schiesser Day in Butte, Mont., something the retired music teacher never imagined. It was the biggest payoff she ever received.

In the 1940s and '50s, Jean didn't receive a cent for the time she spent as director of the Butte High Twirling Corps and as assistant musical director. Never a dollar for her midnight toil designing sparkly uniforms and detailed choreography. Not a cent, because it was illegal for a married woman to receive a paycheck in mid-20th century Montana.

Payment came more than 50 years later when 350 students flew from New York, California, Seattle, Arizona and more to honor the woman who helped make it all happen, who helped nurture a lifelong love of music that led them in diverse directions. From Paul Ulrick, a civil appeals lawyer in Phoenix, Ariz., who in his 70s still performs with two concert bands, to Jean's brother Uan Rasey who went on to become the solo trumpeter for MGM musicals. That's Rasey blowing away while Gene Kelley soft toes through the streets in "American in Paris."

Other former students went on to nonmusical pursuits. Joan Hoff, a leading expert on the presidency of Richard Nixon, learned the hard way about Jean's meticulousness. Hoff crossed Jean when she defiantly cut her hair above shoulder length, a strict no-no. The entire town knew. For performances, Hoff donned a wig, something no one in the mining town had seen before.

Hoff arrived for Jean Schiesser Day. Shea saw the meeting first hand. "It was sorrowful but poignant when they met," he says about Schiesser and Hoff, the latter who he recently saw pontificating on the "McNeil-Leher Report" and "Lou Dobbs Tonight."

Hoff wasn't the only twirler in Jean's midst. Twirlers from as far back as the 1940s didn't hesitate to kick up their legs. "The cutest was a little 70-year-old lady," Sarge says. "These little old grandmas still have the best legs in Montana."