What’s the deal with the coffee picture? Well… if you know Greg you know that he is rarely found without a cup of coffee in his hand. He prefers McDonald’s coffee… must be black (half caffeinated so he can drink more of it) and it had better not be Starbucks. I have literally seen this man spew out coffee someone had mistakenly creamed and sugared for him. Every year when it’s time to take the official school photo he insists his photo be taken with his beloved McDonald’s coffee. This photo was taken straight from the Marian Catholic School Website.
Greg once told me about a teacher he had observed. This teacher told one of his assistants to go “fetch” them coffee. This is a joke that is made all the time and I am certain Greg has jokingly asked me to fetch him coffee at one time or another—but this instance wasn’t a joke. Greg said that he immediately lost respect for this person. This stuck with me. It confirmed the type of leader I knew I wanted to be.
Every morning Greg makes two pots of coffee—one for himself and one for the rest of the Marian Catholic Staff. He completes this ritual every morning as an opportunity to greet teachers and the staff on his walk from the band room to the main office. He makes a point to not keep coffee makers in his office and band area. Inevitably the band senior class cleverly gifts Greg a coffee pot every few years thinking they would save him trips to the office… little do they know that those trips are part of his process. He must have a stock pile of coffee makers sitting in a closet in his house. This is just one of the many stories that demonstrate how special Greg is.
Alright, on to the speech I promised you. You can learn a lot about someone by listening to their acceptance speech when they win an award. Do they talk about themselves or do they talk about their students and the music that was made? Do they talk about their accolades or do they talk about their experiences and the relationships built? I had the great fortune of teaching under Greg Bimm at Marian Catholic and this award acceptance speech captures him perfectly.
If you would like to jump straight to his speech you’ll need to skip forward 12 minutes through his achievements and accolades read by Mike Madonia.
State of the Art is the annual Chicago area Catholic concert band festival.