Glenn Parrish was born April 11, 1938 in Atlanta, Georgia and died in 2021.

 

He started playing trombone in the 8th grade at Hoke Smith High School. After graduating a month after his 17th birthday, he applied and was accepted into the Navy School of Music, and served four years on ships and duty stations in the U.S., Europe and Japan. He then interned and trained as an Anesthesiologist at Portsmouth and Bethesda Naval Hospitals.

 

After the Navy, he worked as a Federal Correctional Officer at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary for a year and then spent the next three years at Georgia Tech and Georgia State before being accepted as a medical student at the Medical College Of Georgia for the next four years.

 

After practicing in North Carolina for 13 years after naval service, he and his wife moved to Reno. After she died unexpectedly, he was persuaded to buy a "Hock Shop" trombone after selling his more than 50 years earlier to help pay for his education.

​

He said that music saved his life and the Reno Wind Symphony was a big part of that.