Happy New Year

All of us at the Panama City Beach Music Festival hope your Christmas holidays brought you much joy and happiness. We also send our best wishes to each of you for a productive and happy 2017. We all understand the important role music education has made in enhancing and improving the lives of millions of young people through the years. During 2017, our hope is that our leaders in education administration in every state, and nationally, continue to recognize the incredible ways music education has played such an important role in the development of successful young people.

We have seen numerous changes in the American lifestyle and culture over the years that seemed to pose serious threats to the way young people were developing from work ethic skills to scholastic achievement. The most significant constant in students we have interacted with were from the group of young people who were involved in some form of organized music education. Students involved in JROTC were a close second, however their goals regarding high education often gave way to military careers compared to those of young people involved in music education.

The New Year promises to give our country many challenges, and hopefully just as many opportunities. We all need to make a resolution or personal commitment to unite our voices and our actions to support the funding for the continued growth of music education in our schools, which is so critical to the enrichment and development of our young people.

Have a wonderful 2017.