Andress High has new band director

A former UTEP band member is now the band director at Andress High School, which started the school year without a director, leaving parents and students frustrated.

“I feel that sometimes as a Northeast (El Paso) person, sometimes our kids may be cheated,” Northeast El Pasoan Shelly Clark told ABC-7. “I really doubt that this would happen at Franklin”

An EPISD spokesperson told us the schools previous band director left for a job in the Socorro District. The position was then offered to someone just before the start of the school year, but that person declined. Now, parents will be happy to know someone has been hired.

Alex Contreras started as the new Andress band director on Monday. Contreras knows he’s behind, but he’s already digging in and off to a great start and he knows there’s no time to waste with contests slated for next month.

“I have to attack what needs to be done,” Contreras told ABC-7. “So being that we have contest coming up, I need to put a show on the field. We need to get music going, we need to teach that, so that’s what I’ve been focusing on. I get here about 6:45 in the morning. I’m leaving around 8:30 at night and we’re just making things happen and making sure the kids are taken care of in the right way.”

The 25-year-old Contreras is a former member of the UTEP band. He told ABC-7 he plans to bring that same kind of energy to the Andress Eagles marching band.

Contreras was most recently the assistant band director at Slider Middle School in the Socorro District for a year. He said when he heard Andress needed a band director, he immediately applied for the job.

His message to the kids is one of “passion, quality and respect.” He feels the band should provide “a showcase of spirit and pride” for the entire school.

Perhaps best of all, he grew up in Northeast El Paso playing for the Parkland High School band.

“It’s just an honor for me to be a part of that,” Contreras said. “When I was growing up at Parkland we would be out there for morning rehearsals and we’d hear the drums and the music coming from Andress High School, and we were like, ‘Man, that’s Andress so we got to get better.’ Then I grew up and some people that came to Andress said, ‘We’d hear you guys too! That’s Parkland out there, we need to get better! there’s so much history here and i’m glad to be a part of it.”

The Andress football team has a bye this week, which gives Contreras and the band another week to prepare.