VENICE — Roger Byrd was playing the trombone at 8.
Within two weeks of lessons, he was promoted to the high school band.
Little did he know then that he was on a trajectory to follow music as a career choice that would land him as Worship Arts Pastor for Venice Church of the Nazarene.
Byrd is an ordained minister in the Nazarene Church, starting his service at VCN in 2019. He and his wife Cathy moved to Venice from Anderson, Indiana, where he had served as a music pastor.
In Venice, he has taken a full-time assignment.
Byrd was born in Akron, Ohio. He grew up with musically inclined parents, he said, who both spurred him toward music.
“They encouraged me to be part of the summer band program at the local high school,” he said. “That was in 1956. I chose to play the trombone and absolutely loved it.”
At 10, he was allowed to play in the high school band for pep rallies and other events until he graduated. At age 15, he met Ronn Huff, minister of music at Chapel on Fir Hill, who went on to become a major music arranger and producer of Gospel music.