By the time she was a junior at MIami University, Molly Venneman had been studying her chosen major, economics, long enough to know the value of things. 

And while Venneman knew some values were easy to measure, others were not. Sure, she could calculate cost, revenue and profit maximization and macro aggregates and multipliers, but there were some other things that were a little tougher to compute. 

Things such as a love for music and a passion for working with young people are a little harder to figure. In the end, the latter of those two categories proved to be invaluable, and later in her college career, Venneman decided to switch her major from economics to music. 

“That’s an interesting story. I was already in college, and it was my third year,” Venneman said of her path from future economist to future music teacher and band director. “I was studying economics, and it was fine for my head, but not for my heart. I’d played in a bunch of other groups on campus and had a great time, and I decided I needed to give it a shot, to see if I could even make it into the program, let alone survive the program.

“I started working on it and kind of thought it was going to be a whim. Get this out of my system, audition, not be accepted, go back to economics, and music can be a hobby. And everything just started to fall into line. Things went okay. I was doing well with the classes. I was having a good time. And I just kept going.”

As it turned out, economics’ loss was music education’s gain. Venneman would follow her heart through college graduation, eventually ending up in the Troy City Schools first as an assistant band director and since 20222, as the director of bands. 

For her dedication to teaching students and leading the award-winning, Superior-rated, globe-trotting Troy High School marching band, the Troy Area Chamber of Commerce has named Venneman its 2026 Outstanding Educator of the Year. 

“It’s a tremendous honor,” Venneman said of the award. “I think it speaks to the dedication of our students and our entire staff. I love what I do, but getting the opportunity to work with this staff and the kids we see year after year are what truly has made it worth it. This is more about what we’ve all accomplished than what I have done.” 

Venneman, who works with band students at the Van Cleve Sixth Grade Building, Troy Junior High School and Troy High School, began her teaching career at Troy in 2007 as an assistant band director. In 2022, she would take over as director of bands when Kathy McIntosh retired after a storied career leading the band. 

Venneman took over a program with a tradition as rich and a legacy as successful as any marching band in the state. Troy is one of only four bands to qualify for the Ohio Music Education Association state competition every year since its inception in 1980. Troy also has earned a Superior rating at state every year since 2000. 

It’s a tradition Venneman understands, appreciates and embraces. 

“It’s an impressive legacy, one that I really take a lot of pride and honor in upholding,” she said. “I think it’s really important to keep that tradition alive. What was done in the past is working. Troy, before I was here, reached that goal and had all these great things happen, and it’s our job to steward that as society changes, as the industry changes, as marching band itself as an art form changes — to make sure that’s upheld, and also taught to the younger generations on why this is what we do.

“Legacy is a big word, and it’s an important word, and there’s a lot of weight in that word. Legacy doesn’t mean we always do things the way they’ve always been done. But it does mean you’re maintaining standards, and you have those expectations, and you’re pointed in a direction together — not just you, but the whole band.”

For the Troy marching band, maintaining that level of success means hard work, and lots of it. In the summer there is a pre-camp, band camp and post-camp that takes up much of the month of July and spills into August. Once the school year starts, there are rehearsals after school, performances at football games and competitions on Saturdays. 

Venneman is the maestro of the madness, getting roughly 100 students all working together toward the same goals, with the kids often putting in 30 hours per week in addition to their regular school work. 

“In the fall, during the school year, we’ve got five and five hours of rehearsal, not counting football games,” Venneman said. “So you’re probably looking at around eight or nine hours of rehearsal per week during the school year, not counting the rehearsal during the school day. If you count that, you’re looking at closer to 15 hours, roughly 10 to 15 depending on the week, of just rehearsal. That doesn’t count the performance timelines.

“A football game is usually about an hour of playing, but then we have time to get dressed and all of that. A Saturday competition — a lot of times we are meeting for rehearsal around 1, rehearse for three hours, pack up for an hour, drive someplace for an hour, and pickup times are around midnight. So it’s a pretty easy 12-hour day, even for a pretty local event. If you add all of it up, you’re probably getting to 30 hours pretty easily. And that’s not counting that we’re very fortunate to have the staff here. There’s extra planning time they’re all putting in. They’re showing up early to do this and late to do that. They’ve helped with prop construction and uniforms. It’s an all-hands-on-deck type of involvement.”

Venneman knows, however, that all of the time and effort is worth it, not just because of what it means in terms of the product on the field, but what it means to the students are who are able to learn and grow in the band, whether it be academically, socially or emotionally. 

“I think it provides opportunities for students to be part of something larger than themselves, but still in an academic setting, measured and evaluated on national standards,” she said. “It lets students work on the other side of their brain. We do a lot with the math and the science and the data, and all of that is super important, but there’s a whole other side of people that doesn’t get tapped into the same way in those classes — the way music does, or arts in general.

“And yet we can still have high expectations. We can still have grit. We can have rigor. And we can have students of varying levels of achievement, maturity, and resources all working toward the same goal in ways other places can’t. We have students in our rooms who are on 504s, on IEPs, who need an aide, who don’t need an aide, who need physical help — along with people who are taking honors classes and have all the resources in the world. We’ve had National Merit semifinalists in band, in the same room with those same kids, working on the same goals. It’s our job to reach them all.”