With the Swish of a Baton He Made A Difference: 'Mr. Allen' Dies at 83

He was a small but mighty man, firm but caring and oh-so effective, those who knew him say. He grasped a baton, but it might as well have been a magical wand because he encouraged his students to do what many said was impossible: play beautiful, complex music that was way beyond their middle school ability.

“This is a grade-five piece of music and you are not supposed to be able to play this, but you will,” William J. Allen would tell his music students.

And they did.

“Mr. Allen,” as so many knew him during his 35 years leading the band at what would become , died on March 1, five days before his 84th birthday, and seven weeks after returning “home” to Florida when he knew his time was near.

“His legacy is his music and discipline,” said his stepson Bob Moseley of Staten Island, NY. “He served his kids very well.”

Before Allen married Moseley’s mother, Amelia, nearly three decades ago, he was his band teacher. Moseley chuckled when he thought back to the teacher-student relationship, calling Allen a “pain.”

“He was horrible. He was terrible. He made you study and he made you work and he gave you homework – all the things you don’t want to do in middle school,” Moseley said, adding that he always knew Allen was right. “He made the biggest deal out of the slightest accomplishment if it was a tribute to hard work.”

He was nothing less than inspirational, his former students say.

“I entered Dunedin Middle as a clarinet play[er]; I left as a musician,” wrote Kim Barrows Meissner of Clearwater on a tribute webpage for Allen. It took me a long time to realize it, but his passion and his great heart helped pull me through a rough time in my life and put me on the road to being the person I am today.”

Meissner, now 46, who “came under Mr. Allen’s baton in 1976,” further explained her experience with the beloved music director during a recent telephone interview. She met Allen when she was in the sixth grade, shortly after her father suddenly passed away. Although he didn’t pick favorites in class, she said, he would gently nudge her when she needed it or offer a kind word like he was quietly acknowledging her struggle.

“He not only taught us music, he taught us life lessons,” she said.

Meissner said when she first started in the band she played clarinet but Allen convinced her to try the bagpipes and she continued with them through college.

Allen is credited with laying the foundation of the middle school band’s Scottish heritage. In 1957, with the help of others in the Dunedin community, he transformed the band into the Highlander Band. A first set of bagpipes was donated and a second bought with booster club funds, led to the schools’ pipe bands.

Allen’s passion for music moved many more students, including Rick Owens, director of bands at Bradley Middle School in Huntersville, NC.

Owens recalled meeting with Allen shortly after he moved to Dunedin from Iowa, where he had sang in the chorus and played saxophone in the band. He sought Allen’s advice because in Dunedin he had to choose between band and chorus.

“For some reason, when I was talking to him I just burst into tears,” Owens, now 40, wrote in an email. “Well, he calmed me down and asked me to hold out my hand. He put his hand up to mine and my fingers extended past his. He looked at me and said, ‘Rick, you are a baritone saxophone player.’ Something about the way he said that just filled me with confidence. I signed up for band that day. I immediately became a HUGE ‘band geek.’ I found a place where I really fit in and where I found success.”

Allen, also a World War II Navy veteran, continued to play the piano in recent years, said his stepson. But even as he lost mobility to do as much as he used to, he continued one of the things he loved most.

“He still arranged music until the very end,” Moseley said.