Director of Bands and Chorus: Robert Marski
Mr. Marski comes to us from Suwannee High School in Live Oak, Florida. He is from Hollywood, Florida where he went to South Broward High School.
Mr. Marski's main instrument is the trumpet. He was the Band Captain his senior year at South Broward and he helped lead the band to its first ever FMBC State Finals appearance.
After graduation, Mr. Marski attended Florida Atlantic University (FAU) where he began his Bachelors in Music Education. After three years, he decided to transfer to Florida State University. During his time at FSU he was apart of various performing ensembles such as brass quintets, University Concert Band, University Symphonic Band, FSU Trumpet Studio, and The World Renowned Marching Chiefs.
In his second year at FSU Mr. Marski was a member of the Marching Chiefs Leadership. he did his student teaching internship at Ramblewood Middle School in Coral Springs, Florida under the watch of Mr. John Nista. There he worked with three concert bands, two jazz bands, three beginning bands, and a marching band of 240 members.
After graduating Mr. Marski took the position of Director of Bands at Suwannee High School in February of 2017 where he taught guitar, piano, music theory and band through June of 2017.
When not doing band related things, Mr. Marski is often talking about sports, specifically the Florida State Seminoles.
Color Guard Director: Paula Alfonso
Ms. Alfonso currently resides in Gainesville, FL. She attended the University of Florida and received a B.S. in Health Education, and a M.S. in School Leadership. Her passion is education and how it relates to the Pageantry Arts. Paula began her Colorguard career in Pembroke Pines, FL where she attended Flanagan High School. That experience blossomed a love for the activity that extended to marching several years after high school. Her tutelage includes: Magic Of Orlando, Crossmen, and The Cadets for outdoor and Alliance of Miami, Paradigm, and The Knights for indoor.
Paula spent time teaching WGI Finalists such as: Gainesville Independent (from A to Open) and UCF Pegasus (From A to World). She spent three summers with Teal Sound Drum and Bugle Corps and helped their transition into World Class. She is currently the Director of Gainesville and Sante Fe High Schools. They are two schools in North Central Florida who compete at FMBC, and FFCC. Her judging experience extends from: FFJA and she has judged for FFCC, SFWGA, AIA, and NJNJ. When Paula takes a break from Colorguard, she enjoys: rooting for the Florida Gators, reading Fantasy Novels based on Grimms Fairy Tales, Disney World, and Eco-Tourism such as kayaking and hiking.
She wants a small animal farm and spends a lot of time with her two rescued Chihuahuas.
Percussion Director: Jeremy Lee
Program Coordinator: Joshua Wendt
Originally from Pennsylvania, Joshua has spent the last ten years cultivating his musical and creative lifestyle in Gainesville, Florida. Graduating from his alma mater in 2009, Joshua has since worked diligently to help progress the arts and participating ensembles towards a creativity fused future.
On the football field, Joshua has served marching bands in various capacities for 7 years. He has enjoyed playing multiple roles for ensembles, including serving as brass/visual caption head for the 8 time state championship awarded Santa Fe High School. In the same role, he played a heavy hand in the growth of Nease High School in Jacksonville, which led to perennial state championship performances as well as multiple regional grand champions. Currently, Joshua is the visual caption head at Westwood HS in Austin, Texas. He is an active visual clinician and design consultant for various programs throughout the southeast.
Joshua's artistic talents extend into the indoor arena as well. Most recently as the program coordinator and director of the Nease High School indoor percussion. With his guidance, Nease Percussion was a back to back WGI Orlando regional champion, WGI Spartanburg regional champion, and a two time FFCC Gold Medalist in Scholastic Open class. Nease was also a 2015 and 2016 finalist at the Wgi World Championships in Dayton, Ohio and was the recipient of back to back Fan Favorite awards. In 2016 Joshua was part of a team that established a new Independent A class percussion ensemble based out of Gainesville, Fl under the moniker "Unity Percussion". In their inaugural year they enjoyed a top ten finish at Wgi finals.
Body design and choreography are one of Joshua's absolute favorite hobbies and perhaps what he is more known for recently. He has been lucky to contribute movement design to successful programs such as the Phantom Regiment, Cedar Park HS (2015 Texas 5A State Champions), Stryke Wynds (2016 WGI Open Class Champions), Westwood Hs (BOA Atlanta finalists), and many more.
Visual/High Brass Instructor: Sean Barr
Percussion Instructor: Ryan Miller
Mr. Miller was born in Louisville, Kentucky and lived there for 9 years until he moved to Newberry, Florida. He attended Newberry High School for 4 years, and in his junior year, he joined Group 352 Indoor drumline where he performed for two years.
During Ryan's senior year the Newberry High School Band of Pride placed 2nd at FMBC State Championships making finals for the first time in school history. Also in his senior year, Group 352 received the bronze medal at FFCC State Championships in the AA division.
Ryan is currently attending Santa Fe College majoring in music and will be transferring to the University of Florida in the near future. Since performing in High School, Ryan has performed 1 year in Project Arts World Independent Winds where they received the bronze medal at WGI World Champs, and also performed 1 year with Unity Percussion who, in their first year received 8th place in the Independent A class at WGI Percussion World Championships Finals.
Ryan has taught at Williston High School (Percussion Tech), has taught 2 years at Group 352 Indoor Percussion including this most recent reason where Group 352 won the Silver Medal at FFCC State Champs. (Front Ensemble Tech) and is now going into his second year teaching percussion at Santa Fe High School.
Color Guard Choreographer: David Hanseter
Mr. Hanseter was born and raised in Jupiter, FL. He attended Jupiter High School, where he did marching band and color guard, and was the color guard captain.
David then attended the University of Florida, receiving his Bachelor of Science in Recreation, Parks, and Tourism. Currently, he lives in Tampa and is employed by the Hillsborough County Parks, Recreation, & Conservation department as a Recreation Therapy Aide, working with children with disabilities.
David has marched under such Winter Guard programs as Gainesville Independent and USF Winter Guard. He has also marched with the Boston Crusaders Drum & Bugle Corps. David has taught both winter guard and marching band programs at Jupiter High School, Freedom High School Tampa, Gainesville High School, and Santa Fe High School.
~"Champions are made when the stands are empty."~
Color Guard Staff:
Kimmy Beers
Danielle Majka
Ms. Majka comes to Santa Fe High School from Pembroke Pines, Florida where she started her dance training at the age of three years old. She trained at Dance Works Studio until the age of 14 when she joined the color guard at Flanagan High School in the Fall of her freshman year and made the World Guard shortly after.
Over the course of her high school career as a member of the Flanagan World Guard, Danielle competed in the SFWGA circuit from 2011 to 2014 where they acquired four consecutive gold medals as well as going on to win a bronze, silver, and gold medal at the Winter Guard International World Championships.
Danielle is currently pursuing a Bachelors of Science in Accounting at the University of Florida and is excited to be back in the color guard community where she hopes to use her experience to enrich her students’ lives through the sport of the arts.
Blake Meyer
Ms. Meyer was born in Key Largo, Florida but was raised near St. Petersburg. Blake attended Seminole Middle and Seminole High School. At these schools, she participated in the color guard and winter guard programs for all seven years. In 2009, Blake was captain of the SMS winter guard that won three FFCC Cadet Class State Championships during her time. In 2012 and 2013, Blake was also captain of the Seminole High School color guard and winter guard. During this time, she also served as the band historian. From 2009 to 2013, the Seminole programs won two FMBC class 4A State Championships, three gold and one bronze medals in Scholastic World Class at FFCC State Championships, and were WGI Scholastic World Class finalists all four years.
Blake has traveled the country performing through the Seminole programs, from BOA Grand Nationals in Indianapolis, WGI World Championships in Dayton, Ohio, the BOA Super Regional in Atlanta, Georgia, and even to New York for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
After high school, Blake attended the University of Miami and then transferred to the University of Florida in August of 2014. At UF, she has performed with the Florida Visual Ensemble alongside the Gator Band for three years now.
Blake is a biology major with a minor in Family, Youth and Community Sciences. She hopes to attend medical school next year. Outside of teaching color guard, she works in a UF College of Medicine gene therapy research lab. Blake started teaching color guard in 2014 and has previously taught at Seminole Middle School and Gainesville High School. She has taught at Santa Fe High School since January of 2015.
Santa Fe High School - 16213 NW US Hwy 441, Alachua, FL 32615
Director Robert Marski 386.462.1125 email: [email protected]
Band Booster Mailing Address: P.O. Box 2105 Alachua FL 32616