Don Lawrence, the musical soul of Columbia Falls and founder of the Don Lawrence Orchestra, died March 1. 

From 1959 to 1984 Lawrence was the band director at Columbia Falls High School. He left a legacy not only at the school but with his musical arrangements he performed with the DLO and other groups. He was 94.

Lawrence founded the Columbians, the high school jazz band that continues to win awards today.

Lawrence grew up in the Flathead Valley after his family moved up here from South Dakota when he was young.

He started playing a beat-up baritone at the age of 6, but switched to trombone, inheriting his brother’s horn, he said in an interview with the Hungry Horse News last August.

Lawrence graduated from Flathead High School in 1947 and went to the University of Montana. He ended up in the Air Force, where he joined the marching band there. It was in the Air Force that he really got into writing arrangements. Being in the band also got him out of menial tasks, like cutting the lawn, he said with a laugh.

Over the course of his career, he wrote at least 100 arrangements and recorded many of them as well.

The day he retired from teaching he started the Don Lawrence Orchestra, renowned for its big band sound.

“I had time to do it right,” he said.

He was the frontman of the band for 27 years, eventually turning it over to his son, Dave, who died in 2020. Today the band is run by Mollye Faulkner and Dana Scranton.

He also directed the Flathead Valley Community Band and founded the Brasswerks and the Big Horn Trio. When his brother died, he took over his band, The Bavarian Echos. 

Lawrence was still writing arrangements, sitting at a modest table on his back porch, last summer at the age of 93.

In 1970 Lawrence, with a host of community support, took 87 Columbia Falls High School band members and 22 chaperones across a performing tour of Europe.

It was the highlight of their young musical careers for many students and was the first time they had not only flown in an airplane but also been outside the country.

Lawrence would return to Europe to perform on several occasions following that trip, he said.

A celebration and musical tribute to Larence is set for Sunday, June 30 at 2 p.m. at Marantette Park in Columbia Falls. Anyone who has played an instrument as part of one of his musical groups is invited to participate.

Ron Bond (left), CFHS chorus director; Eugene Wiegel, composer in residence at Montana State University; and Don Lawrence, CFHS band director, highlight a successful 1962 musicale "Glacier Fantasy" performed at CFHS. Weigel, who wrote the musicale, commented he "liked the exuberance of local students" and gave praise to Columbia Falls High School's good music department. (Mel Ruder photo)