Wednesday, October 14, 2026
By Kip Tabb | Outer Banks Voice on October 3, 2026
Now in their new location at the former Kill Devil Hills Fire Station, the Mustang Music Outreach Program (MOP) plans to expand what it can offer the Outer Banks community.
Hoping to grow opportunities for students and instructors, Music Director Amanda Williams told the Voice that, “the main things we would like to see would be more musicians in the community that are interested in mentoring and being teachers to step up.”
Williams, and MOP Co-founder and Program Director Ruth Wyand, emphasized that the new location offers space and options the program never had in the past. Until last year, it operated out of a corner location in the Seagate North Shopping Center in Kill Devil Hills. That location had two offices that doubled as lesson rooms and a practice space, but as Wyand explained, it was very restrictive.
“We couldn’t do the band until after five because we were in an area where businesses are open nine-to-five. And we couldn’t do lessons while the bands were going because the place was so small,” she said.
The new location, with multiple practice and lesson rooms, space for classroom instruction and a small stage and performance room, “gives us a lot more freedom,” Wyand said.
The move to the former fire station came just in time, as MOP had moved out of its Seagate North location and was looking for a new home. The program did have a new location available to it, but space would have been limited.
Wyand learned the former fire station might be available when Outer Banks Community Foundation CEO Chris Sawin told her about a conversation he had with Kill Devil Hills Mayor John Windley about priorities for the town. The mayor, he recalled, cited “things for kids to do” as a priority. “We mentioned the Mustang program…and he mentioned the fact that the firehouse was available.”
There was some back and forth about the terms of the lease, but at the June 8 Kill Devil Hills Commissioners meeting, following a number of strong statements of support from the community, the commissioners voted unanimously to approve a five-year lease.
Recalling that support from the public, Williams said, “It was very heartwarming to hear everybody make such a point.”
Over the 15 years since its founding, Mustang Music has focused on working with kids, and parents have watched their children gain skills and confidence as they progress through the program.
Sawin, whose son Joe was in the program, said “I saw his self-esteem skyrocket from working with Ruth.”
The new location has what was a meeting room with a small stage area. What can be done with it is somewhat limited, said MOP Board President and Co-Founder Shelli Gates, noting that “the town’s only going allow us to have 22 people in here at a time.”
However, the stage and room fit within with plans “to do master classes and workshops in here and have the bands [rehearse] in that space,” she added.
The new location has other features the MOP program has never had. There is room to set up a recording studio, which Wyand said is “100%” in the plans. There is also storage space for the equipment the program has accumulated over the years. After the Seagate North lease ended in May, “we moved everything across the bridge [to] the Theater of Dare’s storage area. It took five trucks to get there,” she explained.
MOP’s focus will continue to be on developing young performers. Plans call for Gates, who is involved in stage management through her company Boss Lady Productions, to hold a class “on doing a production backstage stuff,” including how to “make a stage plot, how to read a stage plot,” Wyand said.
The new space, though, also offers the program the opportunity to work with adults.
“We want to set up times for more beginner-ish adult bands [where] people can play, enjoy going to open mic…but are not necessarily feeling confident enough to start their own band,” Williams said.
It’s all part of the program’s vision, as Gates put it, to become “the prominent, nonprofit, all-inclusive, nonprofit music school here on the beach.”
