Music, combined with strong faith, has been a consistent source of stability for Keith Griesser during his career as an elementary school teacher and administrator.To get more videos of the news, you can visit shine news official website.
For the past week, in wildly uncertain times for us all, Griesser has spread comfort and shared the joy with colleagues, friends and neighbors by the thousands.
Griesser, a Georgetown resident in his second year as principal across the county line at Paris Elementary School, recorded and shared a musical parody March 24 to help relieve some of his own stress during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Andy at Five,” a re-write of Bon Jovi’s 1986 smash “Wanted Dead or Alive,” dedicated to the leadership of Gov. Andy Beshear and the Kentucky teachers who have emerged as rock stars during this turmoil, had attracted more than 77,000 views as of Wednesday afternoon.The one-shot video, with Griesser clad in a University of Kentucky sports hoodie, seated in front of a panoramic photo of Rupp Arena and sports-themed wallpaper, was a simple project to inspire smiles at a time when that reaction is not everyone’s default setting.
“That’s really why I took on the challenge,” Griesser said. “I feel a sense of responsibility to teachers, fellow administrators, students, parents. It’s important to help each other through this. If I can do something small to help take everyone’s mind off things for three minutes, that’s the goal.”
Also a longtime coach, Griesser had some competitive juices blending with his creative ones.
Over the previous weekend, another principal in his district, Travis Earlywine of Bourbon County Middle School, served up a new spin on Dolly Parton’s “Jolene,” dedicated to the rhyming concept of the quarantine.
“People were saying I should do one, and I found that it helped my mind off the situation that was going on at the office,” Griesser said. “I started working on the lyrics that night.”
With exquisite timing, a young neighbor of Griesser’s could be heard strumming the infectious, opening acoustic guitar riff of the Bon Jovi rock ballad.
Griesser tried to match up a few lines, initially framing his song as a lament about the non-traditional instruction (NTI) that teachers must supervise for the foreseeable future.
As he played the original, complete with its tough-guy-on-a-motorcycle trappings, Griesser thought of a different protagonist: The recently elected leader who takes to the airwaves at the dinner hour each day and keeps everyone focused on the social distancing task at hand with his disarming style.
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