Playing instruments bequeathed by the late John Dutton are, from left, band director Carrie Kohl, tuba; and ninth-graders Tulie Nepveu-McCrory, flugelhorn; Sam Ennis, cornet; Katelyn Koloski, clarinet; Cole Abbott, mel­lophone; and Aric Boettcher, trombone. (Herald / Tom Hill) If you should hear the sound of an oboe, bassoon, or flugelhorn wafting from the

Bethel schools’ music room in the near future, it won’t be a hallucination—but it will be a first.

Thanks to the vision and generosity of Beth­el native John Dutton, who died in June 2010 at age 71, Bethel music students will have 23 more instruments to choose from—several of which the school has never owned before.

“He loved to collect things, in order to be able to play any of them whenever someone needed him to,” said school band director Car­rie Kohl.

Dutton was a Whitcomb High School alum­nus who graduated from the University of Vermont in 1962 and taught in several schools throughout Vermont. He was a skilled survey­or and deed researcher, well known locally for his encyclopedic knowledge of the area’s abandoned back roads and forgotten commu­nities.

A versatile musician who could play most of the instruments he owned, he belonged to the South Royalton Town Band from 1956 un­til his death.

A member of the band herself, Kohl added, “I have seen him play some of his unusual in­struments.”

After Dutton’s death, the school was in­formed by his nephew, Joel Blackmer of Colo­rado, about the bequest.

“He sent me a list of all the instruments,” Kohl recalls. “I didn’t have any concept at all of what I was going to have to choose from.”

During a visit to Bethel last November, Blackmer invited Kohl to Dutton’s home, and told her to go through the large collection and pick out what she wanted.

“I was surprised at how much there was,” she recalls. “Most of it was of decent quality.”

Kohl spent two hours examin­ing Dutton’s instruments, and se­lected 23: a baritone sax, a tuba,