A Change in Tune; Sparks to Retire at End of Spring Semester
Samantha Martin, Staff Writer
The Mass Communications department at North Greenville will say goodbye to 12-year colleague and professor of Mass Communication, Dr. Rick Sparks.
Photo courtesy of Unsplash.com
Sparks has lived a life filled with music starting with piano lessons at the age of seven, practicing on a black ’57 Wurlitzer spinet his parents had bought new. His parents were musicians in their church, his mom a pianist and organist, his father a guitarist and singer. This showed sparks the spirituality of music, and he credits the gospel songs he grew up around for leading him to faith at the age of 12.
In his teen years Sparks began in a track of public performance, playing piano in church. Those teen years set a pattern for years of performance in the church as a pianist.
The college years were foundational for the person Sparks is today, as he began as a International Relations major student at the Citadel. The plan Sparks had was to serve as a pilot for the Air Force or Navy, however during his time at the Citadel the vision standards for military pilots were raised. Knowing that to continue with that school would mean enlisting in the Navy and serving on a ship rather than in a plane, Sparks dropped the scholarship and transferred to the University of Tennessee with a major in Broadcasting.
During the 70’s and 80’s Sparks worked as an FM-radio DJ. This career in radio has changed and evolved over time at seven different radio stations with jobs such as an announcer, program director, news director and station manager. Most recently Sparks has created and works programming for The Cove, a new-age music station.
The origin of The Cove station came from an antique shop Sparks visited with his wife, Sandie back in 2007. The shop owner was playing a CD with quiet solo piano. A few months later, Rick released his own, quiet, mostly solo piano album, Christmas Love.
Nearly a year later in 2008, Sparks began his time at NGU. His prior experience in broadcast radio made him a wonderful addition to the program. Students looking for a future in broadcast radio were introduced to him to ask questions and learn about the audio production field.
Courtesy of the Vision Radio Page
One such student, Vision Radio station manager, Connor Boulet was introduced to Sparks by another colleague, Dr. Andy Stevens, Assistant Professor of Mass Communication.
“He [Sparks] made a great first impression. He was quieter and showed a lot of interests in my background interests and future,” Boulet said.
Even with his prior interest in voice acting and on-air broadcasting, Boulet wasn’t very experienced with programs used to produce audio programming. But, Sparks had a variety of assignments and plenty of advice.
“He was an extremely informative teacher and would draw from his own personal experience. He challenged me as a content creator and was great at offering constructive critiques,” Boulet said.
Now after nearly thirty years in education, with twelve being at NGU, Sparks is officially going to retire. He’s excited for this change, though there are some things he is going to miss about teaching.
“I’m going to miss my students the most. When you’re a teacher, you have a passion for seeing young people grow and learn.”
Sparks holds a high regard for the remaining Mass Communications staff and looks forward to what the program has in store.
“I’m excited for the programs future. We [Mass Comm. Faculty] respect the individuality of our students. We more than respect it, it’s a source of joy,” says Sparks.
Though he may be leaving the university, Sparks won’t be idle. He plans to continue working on his music, with an expected album release this coming October/November titled Christmas Break, his first Christmas album since ’07.
Even though he plans to keep busy, Sparks will definitely be enjoying rides with the top down on his convertible, but he promises, “I’ll be around.”
