William C. Moffit was a band director of national importance whose contributions to musical education gained many honors. He was born in New Philadelphia, Ohio, on May 13, 1925, and joined the Coast Guard after high school, where he played in the Coast Guard Band. After World War II, he attended Baldwin Wallace College on the GI Bill and attained his degree in 1950. He taught in the public school systems of Ohio and Michigan for ten years before joining the faculty at Michigan State University as a band director, where he taught for nine years. In 1969, he became the Director of the University of Houston Marching Band, where he taught until 1981. Bill Moffit resigned from the University of Houston to take a job at Purdue University, where he taught until his early retirement in 1988. After retiring, he founded the Jacksonville Community Concert Band in Jacksonville, Florida. He is the author of Soundpower, a collection of more than 450 arrangements for marching band, and the Patterns of Motion concept in marching. Bill Moffit was the Director of the Fanfare Trumpets at the 1984 Olympics and the Director of the Fanfare Trumpets at the Pan American Games in 1986. The recipient of many honors and awards, he was nominated for the presentation of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and named “Music Arranger Laureate of Indiana” in 1988. His talents as a clinician, a guest conductor, and an adjudicator for music festivals were coveted by many institutions across the country. Bill Moffit died in Jacksonville, Florida, on March 5, 2008.