After a long career at Fishers High School starting in 2006, band director Chad Kohler has retired as of Tuesday, March 31. During his tenure, Kohler transformed the school’s band program into a competitive force, earning four national championships and 13 state titles. He began at Fishers as a percussion director before rising to assistant director and eventually leading the program as head director.
“When I first came here, I was the percussion director, and I was in that role for three years,” Kohler said. “Then I was hired as one of the assistant directors. Everybody said we were just some small rural school that couldn’t compete with the big dogs. My competitive nature did not accept that. I knew we could compete and do well.”
Under Kohler’s leadership, the Fishers Marching Band earned opportunities to perform on some of the biggest stages in the country, including the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City in 2023. That same year, the program advanced to the Grand National Finals for the second consecutive season.
“It was an elite honor to be chosen,” Kohler said. “We performed in front of millions of viewers on television and huge crowds in New York.”
Kohler has built the band program around high expectations, where every student is expected to pull their weight. “It is not enough to just play a note—you have to play it as best as you can,” he said. “Everything is competition, even music. Unlike a math class, where only your teacher and parents know your grade, in band everyone knows it. If you did not sound great, that is your grade.”
While competitive success has been important to Kohler, the community within the program has been just as vital. Students learn to work together and lift each other up to achieve their goals.
“Teamwork makes a dream work. It takes a team. You can never do life alone. You can never do life by yourself. When someone is down, you’ve got to help them up. When someone is struggling, you’ve got to help them out,” Kohler said.
After many years at Fishers, Kohler is preparing to step away from the band program. While he’s ready for a new chapter, he said there are aspects of the job he’ll miss: working with students, seeing their progress, and being part of school events and concerts.
“I am going to miss just being able to do things like the Fishers Spark Parade and other community events where the band can play,” he said. “Whether it’s the marching band or the steel drum band going out to play at the Spark Fest, and then the end-of-year band concert—those are the moments you remember.”
Kohler said his retirement was partly personal, as he wanted to stay until his youngest child completed her time in the program. While he is leaving Fishers, he says he is not leaving teaching or music behind entirely.
“Fishers is always going to be an incredible place in my heart,” Kohler said. “I will always be a Tiger.”
