 We are the women of the PMC Lawson Cancer Center. We are here to support your journey, deliver hope, and provide solutions that will advance your care. Our purpose is saving lives. Recently, Mullins Elementary Band Director Jacob Thacker was named District 9 Middle School Band Director of the Year. He is also the Choir Director at Pike County Central High School. Mountain Top News spoke with Thacker to hear his thoughts on his achievement. I'm very honored to get band director or middle school director of the year because all the teachers in this area are just superb. So me getting it and I'm so young, that's a very big honor for me. This early on in my career is great. I feel like that I was very inspirational to them and helped them get through a rough time during COVID. The program I took over during COVID, so that was a rough time for everybody. So having them come in and learn the instrument, learn this new language music, it was very inspirational to them to come in and learn all this together. It's just been very humbling for them, I think, and me too. Thacker feels a great deal of pride for his students. Teaching music to the next generation and watching them become better musicians is what motivates him as an educator. So when they start in fifth grade at Mullins, we started that. So from fifth and sixth grade, they go, that's the beginning ensemble, and then they have seventh and eighth grade, the advanced ensemble. So they start fifth grade and I get to see them for four years after that. So it's really fulfilling to see them start learning and then by their eighth grade year, you know, we're playing all this literature and all this stuff and they come up to the high school and grow as musicians up here. And it's just very awesome to see them start out and see how they grow over time and help them grow and grow together as musicians. I would like to thank all the directors in this area who support me, all the teachers, my colleagues, Mr. Johnson, my other teachers at Mullins Elementary, Miss Blackburn at Mullins Elementary, the other music teacher. They're phenomenal. It's a great family. I love being here at Mullins and Pike Central. It's just a really big honor. Reporting from out in Top News, I'm Nick Collum.