North Carolina Music Educator Winter 2023

during the 2015 NCMEA Professional Development Conference,
an invitation to the Savannah Music Festival in 2017, and High
Point University recognizing the wind ensemble as an “Honor
Band of North Carolina” in 2018. The concert and jazz ensembles
receive consistent excellent and superior ratings at Jazz and
Concert MPA annually.
Cvijanovic is active with the NC Bandmasters Association and
NCMEA, currently serving as the past chair for the Jazz section,
the CDBA Central Region MPA site host, High School All-District
Clinic chair, and Central Region Jazz treasurer. He is in demand
as an adjudicator and clinician across the state for concert, jazz,
and marching events. He has worked as a rehearsal assistant and
conductor with the UNC Greensboro Summer Music Camp for
eleven years, served as an educational consultant for Carolina
Gold Drum and Bugle Corps, and in 2017 was a conductor with
the Carolina Ambassador’s Honor Band, touring and performing
in the U.K., France, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, and Italy.
East Central District – Bobby Hinson
Bobby Hinson is a 1986 graduate of
Scotland High School in Laurinburg. He
received his Bachelor of Music Education
from East Carolina University in 1991,
and his Master of Music from Temple
University in 1993. He currently serves
as band director at Salem Middle School,
which is a multi-track year-round school in
Apex. Prior to that, for eleven years he served
as band director of East Millbrook Magnet Middle School in
Raleigh. Bands under his direction have performed at the North
Carolina Music Performance Adjudication festivals, and contest
festivals in Florida, Tennessee, and Georgia. His students have
placed in the All-County, All-District, and All-State Honors
Bands.
Hinson is a member of the American School Band Directors
Association, NAfME, and the Central District Bandmasters
Association. He has served as guest conductor and clinician for
many honors bands from the mountains to the coast. He served
on the staff of the East Carolina University Summer Band Camp
from 1994 – 2009. He was an adjunct trumpet professor at
Meredith College 2014 – 2016.
Hinson is an active trumpet player, having played with Idina
Menzel, Aretha Franklin, Perry Como, Johnny Mathis, Regis
Philbin, Susan Lucci, Frank Sinatra, Jr., Olivia Newton John,
Weird Al Yankovic, Bobby Vinton, Ben Vereen, The Four Tops,
The Temptations, The O’Jays, The Harry James Orchestra, and
many more. He also plays in the orchestra for many nationally
touring Broadway musicals at the Durham Performing Arts
Center in Raleigh. His longest running and proudest gig was
with his father’s big band, the Lloyd Hinson Orchestra, where he
began playing at the age of 14.
Northwest Central District – Ted Neely
Ted Neely, a native of Rock Hill, S.C., graduated from
Appalachian State University in 1985 with a bachelor’s degree
in music education. After spending a year teaching in Claxton,
Georgia, he returned to North Carolina and assumed the
directorship of the band at Foard High School (Catawba County).
Under his leadership (1986 – 2011),
the Foard High School band developed
outstanding marching band, symphonic
band, jazz band and winter guard programs.
Neely was elected Foard’s Teacher of the
Year three times during his tenure.
In November 2004, the Foard Jazz
Band, an after-school volunteer group,
performed at the annual NCMEA Professional
Development Conference. That same year, he was chosen to be the
first chairman of the newly created Jazz Section of NCMEA.
He received the fifth Annual UNC Greensboro Jazz Education
Service Award from the Miles Davis Jazz Studies Program at the
UNC Greensboro School of Music in 2008. From 2011 until his
retirement in 2016, Neely was band director at Jacobs Fork Middle
School (Catawba County). He was named JFMS’s Teacher of the
Year in 2013 and 2015.
He re-entered public school teaching in 2018 by accepting the
part-time directorship of the band program at Mill Creek Middle
School (Catawba County). He led the Band of Knights through
COVID and returned to full-time retirement in May 2022. He
served on the staff of Lenoir-Rhyne University’s “Spirit of LR”
Marching Band from 2016 to 2019, and again in 2022.
He serves as the assistant director LRU Summer Youth Music
Camp, which he co-founded with Dr. Chris Nigrelli in 2013. Neely
assumed the leadership of the concert band portion of the Newton
Conover Area Community Band – Concert and Jazz in 2019 and
continues to serve in that position.
South Central District – Joshua Potter
A native of Burlington, Joshua K Potter
is currently the first director of bands at
Palisades High School in Charlotte. For
eleven years, he was director of bands at
Raleigh’s Wakefield High School, beginning
with its opening in 2000. He received his
Bachelor of Music Education from the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
and completed a Master’s in Wind Band
Conducting at East Carolina University.
Prior to his appointment at WHS, Potter served as the director
of bands at West Rowan High School where he introduced full
season competitive marching band. In addition, he served as the
director of bands at Charlotte Catholic High School for the 2011 –
2012 school year. During his time at Wakefield, the band program
grew from a mere 40 students to more than 200. The Wakefield
Band program developed into a comprehensive music education
program that featured three concert ensembles, two jazz bands, a
percussion ensemble studio, a winter percussion ensemble, four
winter guards, a chamber music program, and a music theory and
AP music theory program.
The bands consistently earned top marks at all marching and
concert band festivals and competitions. The marching band
performed regularly across N.C. and the eastern United States,
and was a Bands of America Regional Championship finalist on
multiple occasions and Class Champion of the Massillon, Ohio
Regional. The Maroon Winter Guard was a four-time Winter
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