Marvin Dennis Reaser Jr.

1940 - 2024

Marvin Dennis Reaser, Jr.

Marvin Dennis Reaser, Jr. died peacefully on the morning of August 20, 2024, at the age of 84. Dennis was born on July 28, 1940, in Nitro, WV, to Artie Lda Shomo Reaser and Marvin Dennis Reaser, Sr. He was raised in St. Albans, WV, in a family of very modest means. Sometimes the only food served for dinner was "Cracker Soup" (hot water over Saltines), and the school wardrobe consisted of one shirt and one pair of pants, worn daily and laundered nightly.

Music was important in the Reaser household, and piano lessons were required for Dennis, his sister, Sally, and his brother, David. Sally loved her lessons and grew up to become an expert accompanist, piano teacher and choir director, but Dennis and David hated their lessons and wanted out. Happily, David was destined for glory on the basketball court. Dennis, however, found his escape when one of his aunts gave him a trumpet and two mouthpieces. He loved that trumpet, especially because he was able to play cowboys and Indians with the mouthpieces, which he repurposed as guns. Between Western shootouts, he discovered that he could produce a sound by blowing with pierced lips into the mouthpiece. One successful buzz led to another, and before he knew it, he was showing enough promise as a trumpet player to be released from his piano lessons, though not before his piano teacher had taken him around town on tour as a boy soprano...a sideline he was not at all inclined to discuss with the football-playing boys he hung around with.

Dennis grew into a fine musician, even on the piano, which he played by ear, eventually releasing two CDs of his playing. He was a star in the St. Albans Jr. High and High School Bands. His band director, Alan Farley, saw something special in him, a fact that would figure prominently in Dennis's future career path. In July of 1959, after one year of college, Dennis enlisted in the United States Navy. He served for four years, sailing to Africa, Saudi Arabia and the Seychelles while playing trumpet in the Navy Band. Upon his discharge from the Navy, Dennis landed two teaching jobs as band director, without having yet earned his college degree. The first was at Macedonia High School in South Carolina, and the second was at DuPont High School in West Virginia. He subsequently earned his undergraduate degree from Morris Harvey College in Charleston, WV (now the University of Charleston), and became a teacher with credentials in 1968.

In that year, his former high school band director came back on the scene. Alan Farley had moved to Salem, VA, to direct the Andrew Lewis High School Band a few years prior, and was vacating that position to move into school administration. He called up Dennis and recommended that he apply for the band director job. Dennis applied, but the position went to another candidate. The following year, however, he successfully reapplied and landed the job that would form his career for the next 30-plus years. As band director at Andrew Lewis and subsequently, Salem High, he instituted the disciplined and structured practices he picked up in the Navy. His award-winning bands were known for their student-led governance and emphasis on excellence and hard work. Throughout his tenure as Salem's high school band director, "Mr. Reaser" branched out to work on several complementary pursuits. He earned his master's degree in music composition from Radford University, played trumpet in countless gigs at The Homestead and The Greenbrier resorts with the Freddie Lee Orchestra (eventually purchasing the band and rebranding it as the Dennis Reaser Orchestra), helped bring the Drum Corps International Summer Music Games to Salem, authored the book, How to Build a Championship Marching Band, composed and arranged music for concert, jazz, and marching bands, and took coursework in school administration in order to serve as summer school principal.

In 2001, a gala at the Salem Civic Center on a day dubbed "Dennis Reaser Day" by the City of Salem, marked his retirement from Salem City Schools. Proclamations were read, and City Council presented him with a key to the City in the presence of hundreds of band alumni, family, and friends. After that memorable affair, Mr. Reaser decided he had too much gas left in his tank to settle down and play golf every day. He was pretty good at golf, but he was bad at relaxing. So he accepted the position of band director at Hargrave Military Academy, where he stayed for three years, and then moved to Kill Devil Hills, NC, to serve as assistant principal of First Flight High School for more than 10 years.

Mr. Reaser finally retired for good in 2015. He moved back to Salem and spent the remaining years of his life composing and arranging music, playing in community bands such as Winds of the Blue Ridge, the Melrose Baptist Church band, and the Gloryland Band at CommUNITY Church, hanging out at the Spartan Square Starbucks and the West Salem Lowes, and visiting with his treasured family and friends, twice flying to Los Angeles to play piano for his son's Christmas party. Dennis began suffering from an undiagnosed form of Parkinson's Disease during his final seven years, but he thought he was just getting old and feeble. He stayed a few steps ahead of the disease for a long time by willing himself to get up and walk every single day, always striving for between five and ten thousand steps.