Musician’s Corner Bio
Sara and Mike SchmeHl
Mike Schmehl - Trumpet
Mike Schmehl was born in 1964 in Chicopee, MA where his father was stationed at Westover Air Force Base. However, his parents moved back to the Reading, PA area when he was a toddler, and Mike considers that his hometown. Like many other band musicians, Mike’s musical journey began in the fourth grade. He attended instrument selection night and chose the trumpet. Mike remembers being frustrated at first, because he didn’t think he was a very good player yet. So, in fifth grade, his parents scheduled him private lessons with a local private teacher, Bill Scheneman. Mike immediately began to improve. He continued to study with Mr. Scheneman through HS, and gradually began to fully understand what an opportunity that was – it turns out Mr. Scheneman was a retired Marine veteran who had spent 20 years playing with the President’s Own Marine Band!
Mike attended Wilson High School in West Lawn, PA, and the band program there was a large and active one. He participated in marching band, concert band, and stage band. He had opportunities to travel and perform with the award-winning band at the Festival of the States in St. Petersburg, FL and the Apple Blossom Festival in Winchester, VA; march in the parade for the Kentucky Derby; and perform at a Philadelphia Eagle’s playoff game. Mike also enjoyed the opportunity to play in the pit for HS musicals, and auditioned for and earned the opportunity to participate in PMEA District 10 and Region 5 Band Festivals. While in the Reading area he also completed a summer season with the West Wyomissing Town Band and participated in a concert season with the Reading Buccaneers Drum and Bugle Corps before having to leave the corps due work obligations.
Mike graduated from HS in 1982 and headed to Penn State Berks campus as an Engineering major. However, he quickly determined that Computer Science was a better path for him, and he completed his final three years at University Park, earning a BS in Computer Science in 1986. Other than a brief period playing with a Brass quartet at Penn State to earn fine arts distribution credits toward his degree, the need to concentrate on course work and to work to earn funds to help pay his tuition meant that trumpet playing faded into the background for a while.
Upon graduating from Penn State, Mike started employment with AMP, Inc. Work commitments, marriage in 1990 (to Sara Bartlett, that saxophone player he met in 9th grade Junior High County Band in 1979), and the journey into fatherhood when daughter Meredith was born in 1996 filled his time. There was occasional playing of the trumpet for a wedding or church service, especially during the time that Sara worked as the Director of Music and Organist for Ridgeway Community Church in Susquehanna Township. But other obligations continued to take precedence.
His career path included earning an MS in Information Systems in 1993 and continued systems work with RR Donnelley and Tyco Electronics. He then entered the consulting field and worked for various consulting firms doing SAP HR and later SuccessFactors implementations, much of which required significant travel. The transition to the SuccessFactors era was not easy, resulting in Mike being laid off twice in a span of 12 months in 2013-2014. But eventually it had the benefit of much less travel and much more working from home – opening the door for trumpet playing to begin again in earnest. In 2019, he began his current position with McKinsey & Company, a former client who lured him out of consulting, and continues to work at home except for some occasional travel for company meetings.
Mike and Sara joined the Carlisle Town Band together in 2018. Mike now plays locally with Carlisle Town Band, Carlisle Brass Band, and Celebration Winds. He also rekindled his relationship with other brass players he met during the time at Ridgeway, and he now plays trumpet, piccolo trumpet, and flugelhorn with the Ridgeway Brass Quintet.
When he is not practicing or working, he enjoys Penn State football as a 30+ year season ticket holder, suffers through 5 am wake up calls for daily workouts in the basement, and enjoys travel when he can. Mike and Sara both look forward to the upcoming (sometime in the next decade at least!) retirement years – and the opportunity to fill our time with less working and more travelling and playing!
Sara Bartlett Schmehl – Alto Saxophone
Sara was born in Rochester, NY in 1964 – and was immediately surrounded by musical opportunities in a very musical town. There was a piano in the living room, and the family joke was that she couldn’t pass by the piano without playing at least a few notes. Her mom sang with the Rochester Oratorio Society, so Sara got to sit quietly in the beautiful Eastman Theater surrounded by the sounds of Handel and Bach at an early age. In first and second grades, she had the opportunity to learn to play the violin at school as part of an Eastman outreach program called “Project Super” – one of the pioneer Suzuki Talent Education program’s string projects funded by grants through the NY State Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts that first brought the Suzuki method to America from Japan in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
In fourth grade, the opportunity to choose a band instrument came along, and Sara began to play the alto saxophone. At the end of that school year, her family moved to suburban Reading, Pennsylvania. She found herself in a very band focused environment in the Wilson School District (West Lawn, PA). She no longer played violin, and her musical involvement began to focus more deeply on the saxophone – eventually playing in marching band, concert band, and stage band. Additionally, she kept her other musical interests alive by singing and serving as an accompanist for the chorus and playing piano with the orchestra. She also served as pit and rehearsal pianist for musicals and had the opportunity to enjoy the stage with lead roles in several shows.
HS Musical awards included participating in District 10 and Region 5 Band Festivals, District 10 Chorus Festivals, and an opportunity to play saxophone with District 10 Orchestra on a single orchestral piece. While it sometimes seemed she spent more time at music festivals than at school during certain portions of the year, she somehow managed to keep up with her school work, and was recognized as a National Merit Scholarship Finalist. Additionally, she received scholarship awards through the Reading Music Foundation auditions, and was awarded a prize through a local composition contest program for an original piano composition in 1982.
Participation in the 1980 Governor’s School for the Arts five-week summer residential program solidified Sara’s desire to study music in college. She had begun saxophone study with David Bilger while in high school and chose to attend Lebanon Valley College to continue studying under his guidance. While there she participated in Band, Wind Ensemble, Saxophone Quartet, College Chorus and Concert Choir. She studied saxophone, voice, clarinet and piano, and frequently served as a recital accompanist. She was an officer for the PMEA student chapter, and served as Treasurer for Sigma Alpha Iota, receiving the Ruby Sword of Honor through SAI. She earned a spot as the featured soloist with the Band, was selected to play a Concerto Movement with the Orchestra through the Concerto/Aria competition and received the James Thurmond Band award her senior year. Two saxophone highlights while in college were the opportunity to attend a Sigurd Rascher workshop and learn directly from the man who inspired much of the classical repertoire of his time, and the opportunity to perform in one of the featured evening concerts at the World Saxophone Congress with David Bilger’s Saxophone Sinfonia in 1985. She graduated in 1986 with degrees in Music Education and Music.
Upon graduation, she spent the first ten years of her teaching career in the Annville-Cleona School District teaching K-6 general music and choir. While in Annville, she taught piano and woodwind lessons through the LVC Community Music Institute program, assisted with HS musicals, and was active with Annville Community Theater. She completed graduate work in education in the evenings and during the summer terms, receiving an MEd in Gifted Education with a specialization in Fine Arts in 1990, and completing an additional MEd in Elementary Education in 1997.
She married Mike Schmehl in 1990 (that cute tall trumpet player she first met in Junior High County band), and they welcomed their daughter Meredith to the world in 1996. Sara temporarily paused her teaching career during the early mom years and patched together various part-time work opportunities - teaching private lessons, preschool music classes through Lower Paxton Township, and serving as a church Choir Director and Organist for Ridgeway Community Church in Susquehanna Township. She also began serving as a Girl Scout volunteer during this time, leading her daughter’s troop for 13 years, acting as Service Unit older girl event coordinator, and serving on the GSHPA Gold Award Review Board for 2 years. Sara has also been involved for many years as a volunteer in the church music program at Trinity Lutheran, Camp Hill – playing in the bell choir, occasionally singing with the concert choir, and serving as an accompanist for the Matins and Chancel Choirs.
As Meredith approached the school years, Sara was able to restart her teaching career at the Carlisle Area School District in 2000. (Thank you to current Carlisle Town Band director, Dave Rohrer, for hiring me while he was Music Department chair at the time!) She taught K-5 general music and choir from 2000-2008. She then unexpectedly had a chance to return to her early string roots, teaching elementary strings in six buildings for two years, before moving to the MS Orchestra position for both Lamberton MS and Wilson MS in 2010 until 2023. During the 2023-2024 school year she enjoyed the opportunity to be in only one building and covered 6th through 8th grade Orchestra lessons and rehearsals at Lamberton, as well teaching the Encore rotations for 8th Grade General Music classes. Sara retired from public school teaching in June 2024, with 34 years of service. She will continue to work part time as Director of Worship Arts at Mt. Zion UMC in Enola.
Some of her more notable recent achievements while teaching include completing the rigorous process to achieve status as a National Board Certified Music Teacher in 2020; receiving recognition for her educational string orchestra compositions in the PMEA Composition program in both 2021 and 2022; having a select student group chosen to play at the state capital building during the Music in Our Schools Month (MIOSM) concerts in March 2023; and having a select student group invited to play for Senator Greg Rothman’s Veteran’s Breakfast in November 2023.
During the teaching and child raising years, Sara’s attention was drawn in many directions – and she allowed her saxophone playing to lapse for decades. However, in 2018 she made a commitment to bring saxophone and the band world back into her life! The Schmehls were looking for an activity that they could do together, and they both joined the Carlisle Town Band in 2018. Sara has also had opportunities to sub with Shippensburg Swing Band, the Encores Big Band, play at churches as a soloist, and play as the saxophonist with Celebration Winds. In December 2022, she was featured on soprano and alto saxophone with the Harrisburg Singers during their Holiday concert series, and she played as a part of Carlisle Musical Arts Club’s November 2023 recital. To complete her transformation back into a total “band geek” again – her relatively new summer tradition is to participate in Band Camp for Adult Musicians for several weeks each summer. BCFAM is a fabulous opportunity to continue to learn and grow, playing under retired military conductors and alongside accomplished professional musicians in concert band, as well as explore chamber music groups.
When she is not teaching or playing saxophone, you might find her on the organ bench, or at Penn State football games with super fan husband Mike who has had season tickets since 1990. Mike and Sara also enjoy traveling and have been fortunate to explore many beautiful parts of the world. Their most recent trips in Spring of 2024 were to Duke University for the events surrounding Meredith’s completion of a PhD in Neurobiology, and exploring the Lake Chautauqua area of western NY state during the summer of 2024.