Not the most loquacious of teachers anyway, Vern Fosket was rendered nearly speechless Sunday as he walked into his band room.

“Wow. I’ll say it backwards, Wow.”

In Sequim’s own version of “Extreme Makeover,” Sequim High School band students and parents gave the school’s band room some much-needed refurbishing, including some scrubbing, a fresh coat of paint and some serious reorganization last week.

With a crew of about 20, the band supporters spent much of their spring break washing walls and reorganizing a room that some likened to a disaster.

With a new, blue hue and most of its messes fixed, the room gave Fosket, Sequim High’s band director, a pleasant surprise.

“This is really nice, absolutely wonderful,” he said. “I love doing this job. This is great.”

Laurie Campen and Joann Moore spearheaded the effort, collaborating on the idea while at a fundraiser earlier this year.

“I just picked up the phone and called some people, called maintenance and said, ‘This is what we want to do.’ And people just pitched in (and) started helping,” Campen said.

Moore lauded both Vern and Lynn Fosket for the time and effort spent outside the classroom preparing the 144 band members for contests and performances.

“Those kind of things, they go above and beyond, not just (being) a teacher but helping the kids succeed and get scholarships and understand why music is so important,” Moore said. “It was a labor of love.”

Added Campen, “The kids really love him. Looking at all the plaques around here, you can really tell the outcome of his influence.”

The hardest part, they admitted, was keeping the whole surprise from the one most familiar with the room.

“It was not hard doing the work; it came together real fast. But keeping him out of here was the toughest part,” Campen said.

“It took a lot of sneakiness,” Lynn Fosket admitted.