This week, Nick Averwater talks with Cody Newman, Director of Bands at Forney High School in Forney, TX, a town of around 15,000 located 20 miles east of Dallas. Cody was recently named to the 2022 Yamaha 40 Under 40 list of music educators. In this episode he'll tell us about his early days as a music educator, and we'll also hear about the band program's unique and effective leadership program that focuses on encouragement, selflessness and positivity. Our conversation was recorded July 1, 2022. It's broken up in to two episodes, and this is part one.