By Staff
By Lydia Grimes
features reporter
Luke and Landon Manning are brothers who have chosen to follow the same path in their life’s work. Landon is the band director for T.R. Miller High School while Luke is the Brewton Middle School band director.
Luke was born in 1982, four years after the birth of his brother, Landon. They were both born in Birmingham and raised about eight miles away in the small town of Adamsville.
Both sets of grandparents lived nearby and they were a close family. The brothers say this was probably the beginning of the importance of music in their lives. Their grandfather’s love of music was especially influential on their lives, and music became a part of their lives at a young age. Both Landon and Luke were good students in school. They were also both Eagle Scouts. According to both of them, scouting is a good thing and teaches many of life’s lessons. Luke was more athletically inclined and played all kind of sports, but it didn’t keep him from playing a French horn in the band. Landon played a trumpet and at the age of 15 he went to work at a local pharmacy where he worked until he graduated from college. He graduated from Minor High School in 1997 and Luke graduated in 2001 just as his older brother was graduating from Samford University with a degree in music education with a certificate of music.
He got his first job at Vincent High School, south of Birmingham, as the band director and stayed there for the next six years.
Luke was smart enough to be able to get through Troy University without it costing him anything.
He graduated in 2005 and got his first job as band director at Escambia County High School in Atmore. He stayed at the school for the next two years, until he was hired as the band director at Brewton Middle School.
The brothers had jokingly talked about the possibility of working together one day and that is just what happened this year.
Band Director Carl Major, who had been at T.R. Miller High School for several years, left the high school and there was a vacancy
Now the two brothers are able to work together. Luke gets the kids as they enter the band and shapes them and gets them ready for the high school band. They have even found ways to work with each other at both schools.
Both Mannings are married. Landon met his wife, Lindsey, when she was very young. She moved away but continued returning to visit her grandmother.
They were married in 2004 and now have a son, Cooper, who is nine months old. She is a stay-at-home mom for the time being.
Luke is married to Emily, who teaches kindergarten at Brewton Elementary School. They work together on many things at school and she travels with the band to concerts.
The bands are concentrating on football games right now, but when the season is over they will start with concerts. Lukes wife, Emily, works with Lisa Lovelady, with the colorguard of the band.
Landon has 104 members in the high school band, while Luke has 86 members in the seventh and eighth grades, 46 in the sixth and 65 in the fifth.
Luke, Emily, Landon and Lindsey are active members of Oak Grove Church of Christ in McDavid, Fla.
Luke played the French horn with the Montgomery Symphony for a couple of years.
Landon did a few musicals with the Temptations, O.J.’s and Leon Russell and some television commercials.