KY Choral Conductor and Teacher Remembered

Mike James The Independent

ASHLAND — Students and colleagues remember Bob Doss as a
perfectionist, passionate about music, with the innate ability to
pass those qualities on to the next generation of musicians.

Doss, who died Friday, was director of choral music at the old
Ashland High School and then at Paul Blazer High for 29 years until
his retirement in 1989.

“He set the bar very high and he wouldn’t accept less than the
very best from his students, and he swept the rest of us along in
that,” said Eddie Prichard, a former student and colleague who is
now the band director at Russell Middle School.

“He was a perfectionist,” said Marsha Underwood, who was in the
Blazer student choir in the early 1970s and later taught music in
Ashland elementaries. “He wanted us to perform to the best of our
abilities. You could tell he was passionate about music, and he
passed that on to students.”

Doss hired on at Ashland High in 1958, soon after graduating
from the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. During his tenure at
Blazer, he was named Kentucky Music Teacher of the Year and was
president of the Kentucky Music Education Association.