{"id":21252,"date":"2015-09-23T14:00:11","date_gmt":"2015-09-23T19:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/?p=21252"},"modified":"2015-09-23T10:46:12","modified_gmt":"2015-09-23T15:46:12","slug":"austin-peay-state-university-student-promotes-music-education-in-washington-d-c","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/2015\/09\/23\/austin-peay-state-university-student-promotes-music-education-in-washington-d-c\/","title":{"rendered":"Austin Peay State University student promotes music education in Washington, D.C."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AustinClarksville, TN<\/strong> – In July, Austin Peay State University music education student Davey Edmaiston boarded an airplane for the first time. If he was nervous, the Troy, Tennessee, native probably calmed himself by thinking about the importance of his trip. In a few hours, he\u2019d land in Washington, D.C., to ask members of the U.S. Congress to make music education a priority for American school children.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d never been anywhere out of the state before. First plane ride and everything. My mom was pretty scared,\u201d Edmaiston said. \u201cBut we got to meet with senators and House representatives and talk about the Every Child Achieves Act, which identifies music as a core-curricular so every student has access to music.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Austin<\/a>

Austin Peay student Davey Edmaiston.<\/p><\/div>\n

Edmaiston was one of only four college students from Tennessee asked to join a delegation from the Tennessee Music Education Association (TMEA) on its annual lobbying trip to the nation\u2019s capital.<\/p>\n

TMEA is the state\u2019s chapter of the National Association for Music Education (NAfME), the professional organization for music educators across the country. Edmaiston, a member of APSU\u2019s collegiate chapter of NAfME, joined the organization\u2019s leadership team and students from Cumberland University and The University of Tennessee at Martin for the trip.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a big deal for him,\u201d Dr. Eric Branscome, APSU associate professor of music education, said. \u201cIt\u2019s also incredible exposure for Austin Peay. I don\u2019t know of a time when another APSU student has gone on this trip.\u201d<\/p>\n

Edmaiston spent three days in Washington, D.C., meeting with members of congress and telling them why they should vote for the bill. On one visit, he met U.S. Rep. Phil Roe, an APSU alumnus.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got to play guitar with him,\u201d Edmaiston said. \u201cHe\u2019s a really, really cool guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

After talking about the Every Child Achieves Act with Tennessee\u2019s representatives and senators, Edmaiston returned to Clarksville and watched the senate discuss the bill on C-SPAN. On July 16th, the U.S. Senate passed the bill by a vote of 81 to 17.<\/p>\n

A news release issued that afternoon by NAfME said the \u201cSenate\u2019s action today is an important step forward in ensuring that all students\u2014regardless of their socioeconomic status\u2014experience the demonstrable positive impact that music education has on learning and life.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Edmaiston, the trip both bolstered his resume and got him thinking about how else he can promote music education.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve gotten really big into politics now,\u201d he said. \u201cI never saw myself as interested in politics. But I\u2019ve really gotten into advocating.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clarksville, TN – In July, Austin Peay State University music education student Davey Edmaiston boarded an airplane for the first time. If he was nervous, the Troy, Tennessee, native probably calmed himself by thinking about the importance of his trip. In a few hours, he\u2019d land in Washington, D.C., to ask members of the U.S. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[23,262,24025,825,8252,26776,357,10412,26777,6468,753,26780,21079,13570,26778,26779,916,3359,9649,2279],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4xGYI-5wM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21252"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21252"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21253,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21252\/revisions\/21253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}