In the music room of the new West Side Elementary School, music instructor and percussionist Brandon Willard finds himself in "a perfect world" for teaching. "I would put my resources up against anybody in West Virginia," he said.

"I constantly got in trouble with a pencil in school ...

... because I was always ...

... doing some sort of rhythm."

Photographed with his Snoopy doll at the age of 16 months, Brandon Willard exhibited the animation he later would bring to the classroom as a music teacher.

As a boy growing up in Shinnston, Brandon Willard displayed an early inclination for music by duplicating cartoon songs on the piano.

Concentrating on the notes in front of him, Brandon Willard tickled the ivories in one of his first piano recitals.

In 1998, Brandon Willard was a proud member of the WVU Mountaineer Marching Band.

Gazette photo by LAWRENCE PIERCE.......'WILLARD1'.......9.5x6.14.......Brandon Willard.......INNERVIEWS.......2/1/12.......