“A man in the local music store told me that girls don’t play drums,” Wetzel said. “But my dad told me to stay one step ahead of the boys.”
She graduated from Franklin Monroe High School in 1974 and planned to attend Morehead State University after auditioning for their band.
“I was the only girl, but I made the band,” Wetzel said. “The boys would rip the sticks out of my hand and told me that girls can’t play drums!”
The University of Dayton band director at the time, Claire Miller, saw Wetzel’s high school band play and he contacted her to ask if she would consider UD. In 1974, Wetzel ended up at UD and graduated in 1978 with a bachelor’s degree in education.
“My focus was middle and high school band, so I went out and interviewed all over the place,” Wetzel said.
Wetzel interviewed Preble Shawnee but didn’t get the job. But just two weeks after school started, she got a phone call from the principal who said she had been his first pick and after the man they did choose was accused of falsifying his credentials, Wetzel was offered the job.
“I went to watch the band the very next day,” Wetzel said. “It was 12 kids that didn’t even know how to stand at attention. There was only one way to go and that was up.”
In two years’ time, the band grew to 56 members, and they were regularly attending competitions.
“Claire Miller always said three things — ‘hard work, accomplishment, pride,’” Wetzel said. “I was always saying that to the kids.”
Believing that a teacher’s job is to inspire, Wetzel increased the numbers in the band by visiting the middle school and asking for students to join.
After four years at Preble-Shawnee, Wetzel saw an opening for an assistant band director at Eaton City Schools. She decided to make a leap to a larger school district. But her principal at Eaton was no more supportive than any others had been.
“Doors kept slamming in my face and I was frustrated,” Wetzel said.
In the late 1980s, Wetzel started working part time at Weisenborn Junior High School as the assistant band director. She then decided to apply to Dayton Public Schools.
“I was sitting in my interview at DPS, and the supervisor of music and arts asked me about my goals,” Wetzel said. “I told him I saw a steel drum band play years before and thought that was cool.”
Wetzel admitted she knew nothing about steel drums but would learn. The director hired her on the spot.
Calling this job “heaven-sent,” Wetzel started teaching at the former Fairview Middle School in Dayton. She called Chris Tanner at Miami University because he started a steel program there and then Ellie Mannette at West Virginia University — the “Father” of the modern-day steel drum.
After she started teaching at DPS, she bought her own set of steel drums so she could take them around to different schools.
“Dayton probably had the first middle school to ever have steel drums in their curriculum,” Wetzel said.
In 1999, Wetzel returned to Preble County to work in two schools — National Trail and Tri County North. She bused her students to her studio in Arcanum once a month so they could practice steel drums all day. This small group of students eventually became good enough to attend a national music conference in Washington DC.
At National Trail, the superintendent at the time, Mike Trego, said he loved what the steel drum program was doing for the kids. By the time Wetzel retired from teaching in 2011, she had built the program to six bands and 86 students. Wetzel also started a music festival focused on steel drums, the first of its kind in the country.
When Wetzel retired, the school system had nearly decided to end the steel drum program. Wetzel worked with her replacement director and taught her how to play. Beloved by her students, Wetzel received a retirement gift of a yellow Labrador retriever. The students named the dog “Mannette.”
In addition to travel and helping at school whenever she is in town, Wetzel started a small business producing and selling music stands — Wetzel Pan Stands. The stands were popular, and Wetzel sold the business in 2019.
“The kids come back, and they tell me the drums meant so much to them,” Wetzel said. “I love the art form and I’m very firm with my students. A teacher’s job is to give the gift of education and to keep on inspiring students to be the best they can be.”
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