Mark Winans is the band director at Mountainside Middle School. He also teaches band at Anasazi Elementary and Laguna Elementary. This is Winans’ 38th year of teaching, and his 28th year teaching in Scottsdale Unified.

Winans is an Arizona native who grew up in Yuma and Casa Grande. He was inspired to go into teaching by his own school experience.

“I had an amazing band teacher, Bill Richardson at Casa Grande High School,” explains Winans.

With his chosen path determined, Winans received his degree at the University of Arizona and taught for 10 years in the Osborn School District.

Besides teaching, Winans likes to swim laps with his wife, go mountain biking, and play percussion with Latin jazz bands. He says he used to play more gigs outside of school, but these days he just plays for fun. Winans still keeps the rhythm going with the South Mountain Latin Jazz Band.

Winans says the strangest thing that has ever happened to him at school occurred one memorable first day of April. He says he was walking out of the classroom with another teacher when they heard hissing. “I thought it was an April Fools’ joke, but a snake had gotten in,” Winans recalls.

Student Roey nominated Winans. Roey writes, “Mr. Winans is great because he works extra hard for all of his students.”  She notes that Winans offers jazz band, supports honor band, and “encourages students to try new instruments for jazz band. He also helps get experiences for all band members with interesting field trips and stuff.”

Winans was the second band director at Mountainside when he started there over 17 years ago. “I inherited a really great jazz program,” he says.

He says his students might be surprised to learn that he grew up listening to country and folk music, not classical or jazz.

Two key attributes guarantee student success for Winans.

“I only need two things from my students—effort and attitude,” says Winans. “If I have effort and attitude, they are going to do fantastic in my class.”