Dr. Joseph Benjamin Earp has been named to replace Shane Sprayberry as the Director of Bands at Hinds Community College. Sprayberry is taking on a new role as Director of Fine and Performing Arts after a 19-year career at Hinds as Director of Bands.
“I am thrilled to add to the legacy of the Hinds Community College Band that dates to the 1930s and ‘40s,” Dr. Earp said. “Shane Sprayberry, as the Director of Bands, has been instrumental in cultivating a truly amazing environment for the Hinds Band to flourish. I look forward to working with him as he takes on his new role at Hinds as the Fine and Performing Arts Director. I am equally excited to work alongside a wonderful band staff providing opportunities for the students to thrive.”
Dr. Earp received his undergraduate degree in Music Education from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Master of Music in Music Education from Anderson University (Anderson, S.C.), and Doctor of Music Education degree from Liberty University (Lynchburg, Va.).
Beginning in 2006, he was Director of Bands at several high schools in South Carolina and North Carolina before becoming Director of Athletic Bands at Limestone University in Gaffney, S.C. Just prior to his role at Hinds, Dr. Earp was the Director of Instrumental Music at Pfeiffer University in Misenheimer, N.C.
In addition to teaching, Dr. Earp is an active published composer and arranger with his music being performed internationally. He wrote Pfeiffer University’s first fight song that was adopted by the school’s student government association. Dr. Earp’s major compositional accomplishments include being winner of the 2010 Claude T. Smith Composition Contest in Missouri, winner of the 2018 Thornton Community Band Composition Contest in Colorado, multiple J.W. Pepper Editors’ Choice awards and multiple works selected to be part of the Band World Magazine Top 100.