• Erica Rodriguez •
• Originally published February 15, 2011 at 7:27 p.m., updated February 15, 2011 at 10:30 p.m.

• MORE ABOUT THE TWO LEGACIES Fred Junkin, 83, served as a supervisor of music and Victoria High School band director from 1954-1985. He taught at both Patti Welder and Victoria high schools. He's held several positions in the Texas ...

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MORE ABOUT THE TWO LEGACIES Fred Junkin, 83, served as a supervisor of music and Victoria High School band director from 1954-1985. He taught at both Patti Welder and Victoria high schools. He's held several positions in the Texas Music Educators Association and was the 1984 bandmaster of the year. He's worked with the Victoria Symphony and has been president and member of the Victoria music club. He has master and bachelor's degrees from the University of Texas. He is married to Don Beth, a former Victoria teacher.

Jerry Junkin, 54, is a 1974 graduate of Victoria High School. He is the UT director of bands, music director of the UT wind ensemble, conductor of the Hong Kong Philharmonia and the Dallas Wind Symphony. He has performed, conducted and lectured in 48 states and five continents. He is married to his wife Stephanie, a 1975 Victoria High School graduate.

Jerry Junkin, a world-traveling, Victoria-born conductor, realized his true calling only after a bit of childhood soul-searching.

"Immediately after deciding I was not going to play center field for the New York Yankees or be a garbage man - those were my first two goals - but after that, I decided I wanted to be a band director," he said, with toothy grin.

Junkin is a gregarious, distinguished music educator who has taken many conducting whirlwinds around the world. He conducts the University of Texas Wind Ensemble, has played in 48 states, five continents and, since 2003, makes time to conduct the Hong Kong Wind Philharmonia.

He and his father Fred Junkin, a 28-year band-conducting Texas legend, were the first inductees to the VISD Education Foundation Hall of Honor.

The two were recognized Tuesday at the Victoria Fine Arts Center grand opening.

Jerry Junkin's musical genius began in the Victoria Junkin home, which was often filled with meandering regional musicians and live music.

"It was just sort of the way of life," Jerry Junkin said. "I didn't know anything else. I just thought things that happened in Victoria happened everywhere."

Music filled much of Jerry Junkin's young life and even crept into family mealtime.

"You'd hear a lot of it at the breakfast table whether you wanted to or not," Fred Junkin said.

Fred Junkin, 83, had a different intro to music. The Kerrville native joined a small high school jazz band as a young saxophone player and boogied down at local joints often frequented by Lackland Air Force Base servicemen.

"It's good-time music. Not really serious," he said.

Before getting his teaching degree, he enlisted for a 13-month stint in the Navy in 1945 just at the end of World War II. He was stationed on a ship on the Japanese coast where his music passion trumped even wartime fears. After learning about a band on the shore he put in for a transfer, got it and kept playing.

After a couple of short band directing stints following college, he moved to Victoria in his late 20s in 1954 when his band was 60-members strong. Back then, his first practices were in an old Army surplus building and his concerts in a wooden gym.

"Actually, the acoustics were really pretty good on that stage," he said. "It was an all wood building. It had very live beautiful resonance in that building, so it was a good place to play."

Victoria was a small town then with only about 35,000 people and a thriving art community.

Jerry Junkin remembers watching classical groups from all over. Even the famed Luciano Pavarotti perform in town.

A defining musical moment came for the father-son duo at Oberlin College during a musical fellowship.

"This was a Godsend to get to do that and improve my musical horizons," Fred Junkin said.

His wife and 12-year-old Jerry Junkin tagged along with a clarinet in tow, and that summer, Jerry Junkin learned to follow orchestral music scores.

"It was such an incredible sound and to hear it live and see the music going by," he said. "I think it did somehow persuade me that you can do this."

Today, Jerry Junkin believes music education is "undowithoutable."

"Music and the arts in general are not something that should be viewed as frills or expendable," he said. "It's an important part of education. To be a well-rounded human being, you have to have some sensibilities that are developed with the fine arts."

It's difficult for both the conducting legacies to talk about their love of music.

"It's like trying to talk about love," Jerry Junkin said. "You can't really describe the depth of feeling involved with any person or thing that you love desperately. You sort of have to experience it with music or the arts."

For Fred Junkin, the idea is simple.

"You have to have a love for what you do, and you have to have an appreciation for what the composer is trying to tell you and tell the world."

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