By Bridget Nash, Staff Writer

Tri-State Music Festival is just around the corner, but for Debbie Lambert, new Tri-State director, the event never ends.

“It’s an all-year job,” she said. “Some people don’t believe that, but it really is.”

Lambert took over as Tri-State director in July 2008 from C.W. Simmons Jr. and has spent nearly every moment since then preparing for the event, which runs April 29-May 2.

Lambert is a retired band director, having taught at Kremlin-Hillsdale and Ringwood. She began helping in the Tri-State office in October 2007.

This year will mark the 77th year of the music festival, and the event has diminished in size over the years.

“It’s smaller than it used to be,” Lambert said. “It could stand to grow a bit. There’s other places and other things to do that they didn’t have 77 years ago.”

Even though the event is smaller than it used to be, Lambert still has her work cut out for her getting everything ready to go.

“It’s hectic,” she said. “We haven’t even had time to empty the trash.”

Lambert said she used to help with Tri-State years ago, back when they didn’t use computers.

“I used to do this when I was in college ... some of it is similar, but where it has changed is that we’re computerized,” she said.

Now, computers are supposed to make things easier, but that is not always the case.

“We lost all our information around April 1,” Lambert said.

The information was lost due to the computer system shutting down.

But now they are back on track.

About 45 judges and 200 schools are scheduled to compete in the music festival.

“Some of the judges are coming from as far away as California,” Lambert said.

One event most looked forward to each year is the carnival, which is set up and scheduled by Tri-State. Some of the proceeds from the carnival benefit Tri-State.

“If people would come down and go to the carnival, it sure helps Tri-State,” Lambert said.

Lambert said she hopes in future years of the event, someone will sponsor the parade so prizes can be awarded to the winning marching bands. This year, Continental Resources and Henry Gungoll Operating Inc. have stepped in and helped sponsor the parade, Lambert said.

“If somebody would consider sponsoring our parade, we could possibly attract more bands,” she said. “Tri-State has done like everybody else, they’ve hit the economic problems. We need help.”

In the end, it all comes down to the volunteers who help with the event each year.

“We’ve had a lot of people help with Tri-State this year,” Lambert said. “We want to be sure to thank our volunteers. If we didn’t have them, we couldn’t have Tri-State.”

A meeting for volunteers will be 7 p.m. April 28 at Mark Price Arena.

Lambert also said many businesses in town have made donations or offered discounts for students in town for Tri-State.

There will be a couple of new things at Tri-State this year. There will be a children’s honor band and honor choir for fifth- and sixth-grade students, and there will be a jazz night with special contributors 7 p.m. May 1 at Cherokee Strip Conference Center.

Lambert won’t breathe a sigh of relief until all the hard work comes together on the first day of Tri-State. Then, her job will be relatively simpler.

“I’ll just be putting out fires,” Lambert said.