My name is Marcus Brewer, and I am a 17-year old senior at West Texas high school. My high school experience has been an interesting one, full of ups and downs. In my freshman year, I made it to the Area level of ATSSB All-Region, which made me feel on top of the world. The following year, I did the same thing, only missing moving on to the State level by two spots, which made me happy, but a little bit disappointed. I had improved greatly and almost made it to state, but had lost my chance at the ATSSB 3-year All-Stater scholarship. My junior year, I finally did it! I made it to the State level, allowing me to go to TMEA and meet the band director for the college that I am now going to go to. Then came my senior year, and leading up to the Area audition, I had been told numerous times that everyone around me, my private lessons teacher, my parents, my band directors, were all confident that I would go to State again. When the day arrived, I was nervous, but somewhat sure of myself, until the results did finally come in and not only did I not make the cut, I was in the bottom half! These experiences helped me to be able to deal with failure better. My goals and plans for the future are to attend Eastern New Mexico University and double major in Music Education and Music Performance. After I graduate, I will audition for many different orchestras and professional music groups. Once I am in one, I will also attempt to get a job helping to teach at a college nearby. This scholarship will help me achieve these dreams because to do any of this, I need to own my own instrument, and the cheapest professional level bass clarinet is around four thousand dollars. Playing in a professional group would likely also mean that I would need to own multiple different instruments, all professional level ones. If I have to pay the full amount for college, I will have to put all of the money that I earn from working into that, and likely not have money left over to buy an instrument by the time I graduate. If I do not own my own instruments by the time that I graduate, it will be nearly impossible to get a job playing professionally.