Phil Crews always wanted to be a drummer and percussionist.

His passion as a musician not only allowed him to fulfill those dreams, but it steered him into his role as a teacher at Rich Township High School where his bands received numerous awards while his career flourished.

Crews, who spent 22 years as a band director at Rich Township, retired at the end of the 2024-2025 school year.

Actually, semi-retired is the more appropriate word. Crews still is teaching, as an adjunct professor at Prairie State College in Chicago Heights.

He also intends to perform more often now that his schedule is less demanding.

“I just loved seeing the kids grow,” Crews said. “As freshmen they’re trying to figure out how to march and their coordination isn’t there yet. They’re still figuring out how to comb their hair. By the time they’re juniors and seniors, these little adults have grown so much. They can speak publicly and carry themselves with more maturity. I love to see that growth and how as seniors they’re helping the others.”

His own personal growth took a giant leap while he was a high school student himself.

“I had just finished a solo and the head of admissions at VanderCook (College of Music) asked where I was going to school,” Crews said. “He said, ‘You’re going to come to VanderCook,’ so the rest was history. I got there and fell in love with teaching.”

He spent nine years as band director at Thornton Township High School in South Holland before moving to Rich Township, where his contributions to music and music education “will never be forgotten,” Superintendent Johnnie Thomas said in a news release.

Just a few weeks after he retired, district officials gathered at Rich Township High School’s Fine Arts & Communications Campus along Sauk Trail in Richton Park to dedicate the school’s musical arts center in Crews’ honor, hoisting his name high on the outside bandroom wall.

Students like Rebecca Perry certainly have benefited from his tutelage.

Perry, who is now studying at UIC, was a drum major at Rich Township who also played for Crews in the Prairie State College Wind Ensemble. She said she was blessed to have Crews as a teacher for five years.

“Honestly, I’m still learning from him,” she said. “The lessons and skills he bestowed upon me have carried throughout the years and will likely continue to do so for a lifetime.”

Perry said she learned far more from Crews than she could explain.

“I learned a lot about the technical aspects of music, like chords, layers, technique and composition, among much else, but in addition, Crews taught me about being a musician,” she said. “Being a good musician is more than the music, whether people understand that or not. There’s more than just what’s on the paper. There’s creativity and creative blocks, there’s confidence and execution, and one of the best skills I’ve ever been taught was to continually practice my craft. Crews gave me every possible opportunity there was to continue to grow in my talent and show off my hard work, and I’ll forever appreciate his constant desire to help me grow through the melodies.”

The impact Crews has made on students like Perry and countless others has been noted. In 2009 the Illinois State Board of Education recognized him for excellence in teaching, giving him the “Those Who Excel’ award. At the 2018 Illinois Music Education Conference he was honored with the Mary Hoffman Award of Excellence for his stellar work in the classroom in music education.

He built the Rich Township High School Band program into a powerhouse, with excellent concert, jazz, marching and pep bands representing the school year after year. The Rich Township pep band performed at the 2020 IHSA boys basketball state championship, its concert bands have consistently received superior ratings in IHSA organizational contests and its jazz band has become a frequent performer at prestigious festivals.

“As a teacher and a band leader, Crews is smart, attentive and creative,” Perry said. “As a person like the rest of us, Crews is honest and open, and he lets that intertwine with the music and his teaching and that makes it all the much better. He is a father, a grandfather, a son, a brother, and most importantly he was in the same shoes as all the people he’s taught at one point in time, so he gets it and he understands what we all go through at a point in time. And, if he doesn’t understand, he does his best to help aid whatever may prove difficult.”

His determination inspires.

“I appreciate how determined he is, how quick-witted and solution based he is, and how he lights up when everything goes to plan,” Perry said. “He is also just as grateful for his students as we are for him, and being taught by him was an absolute blessing.”

Afforded a strong music education program in the Normandy Schools Collaborative in northern St. Louis County, Crews prospered as a band student himself, helping set the stage for his career in music and music education..

“I played fifth and sixth grade band into junior high and had a great system to do it in St. Louis where the Normandy School District all led into one junior high to one high school,” he said. “We had a great band orchestra, two levels of jazz band. The band director played violin and was a great musician. He loved marching band, jazz band, concert band and orchestra. It was a great school district to grow in.”

The same can be said for those who had the opportunity to learn and play with Crews at Rich Township. And speaking of playing, that’s what Crews expects to be doing a lot more going forward.

“I want to play more,” he said. “I never had the opportunity to just focus on being a great drummer, a great player. I also want to see if I can build a program at the college level. I planned out my career a long time ago. Before I started teaching I knew I wanted to start in elementary school to see if I could teach beginners. That gave me the confidence to teach at high school and I’ve had aspirations to go teach at the college level and I’ve now been at Prairie State for 20 years.”

With added free time, Crews plans to listen to more music and enjoy more concerts.

C. R. Walker is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.