Kathy Sotelo is a native of East Tennessee and a graduate of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, with a Bachelor of Science in Music Education. She later received her Master of Arts in Music Education from the University of North Alabama, and is currently a doctoral candidate in Music Education at Boston University. This is her 13^th year teaching band in the Cocke County School System and her 31^st year teaching band overall. Many of her students through the years have received honors and achieved success in the field of music. She is a member of ETSBOA/TMEA, Sigma Alpha Iota, The International Clarinet Association, and the Smoky Mountain Trumpet Guild. In addition to teaching band, she is the pianist at St. Paul Presbyterian church, and carries on the family farming tradition managing farmland in Hamblen and Greene counties. Kathy enjoys performing music whenever possible and has performed on clarinet, saxophone, trumpet and piano in many venues in the Southeast. Aside from music, Kathy has played volleyball in the Morristown Rec League for the past 22 years, and enjoys gardening, running, and hiking in the beautiful Smoky Mountains. She and her husband Chris, brass and bass instructor for CCHS, live near Panther Creek outside Morristown with their two cats, Leo and Snickerdoodle.

Travis Hicks is a native of Central Pennsylvania and a graduate of Lebanon Valley College of Annville, PA with a Bachelor of Music in Music Recording Technology and a Bachelor of Arts in Music, Jazz Studies. He later received a Master of Music in Music Education at Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee. Mr. Hicks is a percussionist and has studied with Mr. Robert Nowak, retired Principal Percussion of Northeastern Philharmonic and Reading Symphony Orchestra, Mr. Thomas Strohman, and Dr. Andy Harnsberger. He as performed with the Reading Pops Orchestra, the Anthracite Philharmonic, the Ringgold Band of Reading, PA, the Central Penn Wind Ensemble, The Lebanon Valley Marimba Ensemble, as well as many other orchestras and bands. He has been commissioned to write for several people and ensembles and has recently premiered two of his own compositions for solo vibraphone. Prior to teaching full time, he had a career as a freelance audio engineer and lighting designer and continues to do this as time allows. Mr. Hicks joined the Cocke County Band program in 2019 and currently resides in Newport, TN.