Today's Featured Biography

Steven Kimbell

It's been a long and storied past since leaving NW. I still live in the area, although out in Gaithersburg. My mom passed away in September of 2013, still living in the same house on Lancer Drive I grew up in. My sisters Brenda and Stephanie and I are still in the process of liquidating, but it brings back a lot of memories going back over there. I get out that way from time to time, and it always amazes me as to how much has changed, and how much remains almost exactly the same.

Those that knew me in HS knew I was big time into everything dealing with music. That has been the continuing theme throughout the last 35 years.

I've played with symphony orchestras in Europe, with a small band doing the military circuit, with a show band touring the country, and as a freelance sound engineer working with a multitude of acts ranging from REO Speedwagon to Johnny Paycheck to Chuck Brown & the Soul Searchers to Englebert Humperdink.

I currently manage and play with a band called Oracle that performs a lot of weddings and corporate events, yet we still play several time a month publicly in the area so friends can come out to party with us.

It continues to strike me that songs folks are calling "oldies" these days are tunes that I used to play when they were first released. I guess I really am getting old, but I do remain convinced that you're only as old as you feel, so I keep playing every weekend and having a ball.

During the weekdays I work for a small trucking company out of Dulles Airport. It was kind of weird how I stumbled into this.

The company I had worked for went under and I was out of work. My next door neighbor asked if I knew how to drive a truck. Having spent many years behind the wheel driving for the various bands I worked with, I was quite familiar with over the road driving, so I signed on until something better came a long. Interestingly enough, nothing better came along as I really enjoyed being out on the open road seeing the country, (although local stuff really sucked since the traffic here is the worst in the country IMO).

Managing a band also led me to a thorough familiarity with the web and website design. While I may not be the most artistically gifted person, every band I've worked with has been thrilled with the results of how I have been able to market the band's websites...to the point where the website garners 75% of our business currently.

This familiarity with web marketing has led me to branch out and form a one man consulting company that specializes in helping others rework their existing sites to make them more marketable to the search engines.

I have attended all but the very first reunion, and I've got to say that each and every one was a blast. It is so cool to see everyone again, and I love the opportunity to see anyone anytime from the class. Some of them manage to come out to our gigs from time to time, and that is always special. In getting together it strikes me that there are no more "cliques"...I visit and chat regularly with classmates I didn't really hang out with in HS, but we are bonded by the fact that we're Class of '73 Wildcats!

I've been pretty nostalgic the last few years. I'm not sure if it's driving the people around me crazy or not.

I visited PG Plaza some time back...wow...it's another world there. But then you get back into the neighborhoods. Lewisdale looks almost exactly the same as it did 35 years ago, (minus the speed bumps). I remember all the friends that used to live there, and how we all used to go over to the duck pond and hang out.

Every time I see the new Northwestern I get transported back to those days when the worst thing I had to worry about was getting caught cutting classes by Vice Principal Riggin. Man I cut some classes. My senior year I missed something like 130 days from homeroom so I could get my name on the absence list, which got me out of at least one class. By the time I graduated I don't think my homeroom teacher even knew my name!

And the there's Ronca. Mike Ronca. Uncle Mike. I suppose most people can point to at least one teacher in their time that had a significant impact on their future life. For me, that was Mike Ronca.

He knew I was cutting class, and rather than having me hanging over at PG Plaza wasting my time away he'd have me practicing my horn, or working administrative logistics for upcoming concerts, or finding other things for me to do to keep me out of trouble. Sure he knew I was cutting, but he singlehandedly kept me out of major trouble.

After graduation I went back periodically to substitute for Ronca when he was out. When they finally got a real band room to use, rather than using the auditorium, everyone knew it would eventually become the Mike Ronca band room. He was killed in a car crash in 1981, on his way to go skiing. He was 65 years old, yet he never stopped going. I used to go up to his cabin in the Catoctin Mountains to visit. He had his own tennis court in the back year, and had to use a snow-ski to get to the cabin in the winter. Great times.

OK...so I'm wallowing a little here, and I'm not sure how much space they give you for bios. I've never been one for brevity, so I do apologize for running on so long, assuming you've even managed to read this far.

I'm looking forward to the next reunion, (and all the future reunions), and I hope that anyone who is still in the area will check out my band's public performing schedule and come out to a show sometime to say hi.

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