BluestoneReview

This edition of the Review will be the last one under the helm of Dr. Rob Merritt, who started this magazine some 28 years ago and has been overseeing its composition ever since. As such, we have reached out to past editors, as well as staff, to see if they would like to contribute pieces about their time with Dr. Merritt for this special edition. Here are their words. Merritt’s Merits By Haley A. Moore Do you know what it’s like to feel saved? I don’t particularly mean like a lifeguard jumped into the deep end of the pool that you ven- tured to, knowing you couldn’t swim, and pulled you out just in enough time to keep your lungs from filling with water. No, I mean saved as in keeping you from straying too far down a path intended for some lesser version of you that you were never meant to become. I mean saved as in something more of a spiritual guardian, pushing you to finally realize your true self and purpose for being exactly where you are, about to do exactly what you are intended to be doing. Well, I know exactly what that’s like. I started out thinking I was going to be the next greatest march- ing band director southern Virginia had ever seen, pushing the kids to their fullest potentials and touching the hearts of each and every student to march on into my classroom. That was okay…for a while. I was good at it, too, but something never really felt complete. Everyone told me I was doing what I was meant to do, but I never believed them. I never felt whole. “I have someone you need to meet,” my music mentor grinned— at least, I think it was a grin under that mountain man beard—motioning me into his office, as he referred to the cluster of papers, instruments, photos, CD’s, and whatever else was hiding under the piles of mess. And then my savior arrived, a sarcastic, pepper-haired man with a laptop bag slung over his shoulder and a felt coat on his arm. “So, you like to read?” the man asked me, straight to the point. I told him how the entire reason I was there was because I was spotted wearing a Harry Potter dress at band camp a few years back and was approached by this weird “Duck Dynasty” guy who was entirely too in- terested in my favorite books and the reasons I read. This was my music mentor, a man by the name of Priest who would get way too much joy

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