Happy Tunes Owner Says School Leaders Pull Strings for Select Businesses

Some school band leaders have hit a sour note with a local business owner.

owner Marsha Jones of Land O’ Lakes attended Tuesday’s school board meeting to voice her concern that schools are being selective in the businesses they send their students to for instrument rentals.

It used to be that all of the music stores would send their fliers to the schools, and all of that information would be sent home for parents to choose from, rather than endorsing one particular store, she said.

It recently came to her attention that a Pinellas County-based music store is renting space from a local church to rent school band instruments and sell accessories to the new band students, and at least one middle school band director is telling students to attend this “official” school rental meeting, she said.

“I don’t think that it is appropriate for any school to send business out of state or out of the county,” Jones said.

“As a Pasco business owner for more than 20 years a portion of our sales tax dollars through the ‘Penny for Pasco’ stays in our county. We do not come here once a year to take the cream and return to our own county, we are here to support our local band students every day, 365 days a year, year in and year out, and to support our local schools and establish relationships with our Pasco neighbors,” Jones wrote in a follow-up email.

The school board did not have a comment.

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