CHELSEA PURGAHN, cpurgahn@tylerpaper.com

Dress shoes, slacks, dress shirt and tie. Like many teachers, this is Howard Galletly’s typical wardrobe as a band director at Bishop Thomas K. Gorman Regional Catholic School. However, his ties are far from typical.

Some feature rainbow music notes, while others depict Disney or M&M characters playing musical instruments. There are handmade ties, instrument-shaped ties and ties that will play you a tune. In all, Galletly owns over 275 ties … and counting.

“I usually get two or three at conventions every year, and then my wife learned how to buy them on the internet,” he said. “So every birthday, every Christmas, every Easter, she’ll buy a couple of music ties.”

Galletly has loved music since childhood, when he played piano in fourth and fifth grade before being recruited to band in sixth grade. “The first day of school I told the lady that I was going to be a clarinet player and that I’m going to be a band director someday.”

Galletly was true to his word, and has taught band for the past 43 years around Texas. He primarily plays clarinet and saxophone, “but I play them all good enough to fool the beginners, anyway,” he chuckled.

Galletly has taught beginner, middle school and high school band at Gorman for 13 years. He’s never really liked to wear ties much, but most teachers wore them earlier in his career. “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade, so we turned this into a thing” and started collecting ties in the ’90s.

 “I won’t wear this tie again, so you be sure to get a good look at it,” he tells his students. They’ve made it into a little game: “They try to see if they can catch me duplicating,” Galletly noted, “but I’ve got 220 music ties to wear over 175 days of the school year, so I don’t have to repeat.”

Of all his ties, Galletly said the ties with clarinets are his favorite. He even has a clarinet-shaped tie he sometimes uses as a teaching tool.

“I don’t have that good of color sense – my wife is the one that picks them out for me,” Galletly laughed, when talking about how he chooses a tie for the day.

The most rewarding part of teaching for Galletly is “watching (students) when you’re sitting there in a chair next to them and suddenly the light goes on in their brain and they figure out they can do this or they can do that.”

“My passion, my religion and my work are all tied to music, and I’ll be teaching for as long as I’m able.” In the meantime, Galletly will probably get a few new ties, too.

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