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TEXAS BANDMASTERS HALL OF FAME
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Floyd Weger - Class of 1994
 

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Floyd Weger was born April 4, 1913 in Colbert, Oklahoma. He began his career as a music educator in 1935 at Shidler, Oklahoma where he developed award-winning choruses, orchestras, and bands. His 1939 band won superior in the national contest at Little Rock, Arkansas. In 1941, Floyd moved to Paris, Texas, where he became Supervisor of Music. He organized and conducted the first ninety-piece orchestra, the first one hundred-voice A Capella choir, and the first symphonic style band in Paris. His high school band won its first superior rating in concert and sight-reading in 1946, and after that came superiors in concert and sight-reading for twenty seven years. After only one year in Paris, Floyd enlisted in the Air Force Band and spent the next three years there. He returned to Paris in 1946 to continue as Chairman of the Music Department. The program became so large; he was able to hire an assistant to take over the chorus in 1954. He continued with band until his retirement in 1978.

In 1949, he was selected by the City of Paris to conduct the Paris Municipal Band, a band he continues to conduct after 44 years. This is one of the few remaining municipal bands left in the nation. Concerts are held every Friday evening at Bywaters Park during the summer. In appreciation of his concerts in the park and at the annual July 4th fireworks in Paris, the Paris Rotary Club presented him the "You Make Paris Proud" award in July, 1990.

In 1948, the Paris Junior Chamber of Commerce presented Floyd Weger the Outstanding Young Man of the Year award. In 1961, the Paris High School Band was selected the Texas Honor Band and played a full-length concert for the first Four States Bandmasters Association convention in Texarkana. In 1962, the Paris High School Band was one of five bands in the nation to play a full length concert for the Mid-East Bandmasters Association in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1966, the Paris band was selected as the official Texas representative band to parade in the Mardi Gras in New Orleans. That same year, they performed for the Lions International Convention in Los Angeles, California. In 1969, they paraded in the Indianapolis 500, and in 1975 they received the Outstanding Band award in their class at the Worlds of Fun Festival in Kansas City, Missouri.

From the early '50s, Floyd became active as a clinician and adjudicator over a five-state area, an activity he continued until his retirement in 1978. Floyd was lucky to have his wife, Irene Weger, as his assistant for the last thirty years of his teaching career. They have two children, Jeanie Larson, principal flutist with the Dallas Symphony and flute instructor at Southern Methodist University, and Steve Weger, principal trumpet with the Ft. Worth Symphony and Chamber Orchestra. He is also trumpet instructor at Texas Christian University. In 1983, Floyd was guest conductor of the Ft. Worth Symphony for a full-length "Pops in the Park" concert which featured his son, Steve.

Upon Floyd’s retirement in 1978, the Paris Board of Education, at the request of hundreds of former students, named the Fine Arts building at Paris High School the Weger Fine Arts Center. In 1993, the Paris Education Foundation honored Floyd and Irene Weger with the prestigious "I Love Paris" award, and a gala celebration was held in their honor. Also on this occasion, a plaque was presented to the Wegers from Governor Ann Richards. Congress, at the request of Jim Chapman, had a flag flying over the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C. The mayor of Paris, George Fisher, read a proclamation declaring February 20. 1993 "Weger Day" and a letter of congratulations from TMEA was read. The flag which flew over the U.S. Capitol on February 20, 1993 now flies over the Weger’s Four Winds ranch, seven miles NE of Paris.


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