Don’t go tacking “professor” in front of Bobby Osborne’s name. But he has become a bona fide college instructor at Hazard Community Technical College’s Kentucky School of Bluegrass & Traditional Music. And, it’s a case of what goes around comes around. The classes are taught in the old Hyden, Ky., high school, where Bobby Osborne’s dad taught.

Bobby’s cousin, Dean Osborne, is director of the school.

Bobby Osborne

“We started out Aug. 20 with 15 students,” Bobby Osborne said during a break in performing at the recent Franklin, Ky. Music Festival.

“Right now, we’re in the history of bluegrass,” Osborne said. “My job right now, halfway through the class, I go through there and they ask me questions and so on and so forth, and I’ve been able to answer them all.”

Besides his job as history teacher, one student in the program asked Osborne to teach him mandolin.

Osborne drives to the Kentucky campus from his Tennessee home each Monday and stays until about noon on Wednesday. He speaks with enthusiasm about his new-found role.

“I’m really proud to be a part of that,” he said. “Tradition was what I was raised on, really. … I tell the people, your kids, your grandkids, … we teach them the basics.”

He also says the students take the classes seriously.

“You get a grade on it. … It’s no fly by night thing, it’s all real,” he said.

Osborne said the school plans to build an auditorium and recording studio in the old high school turned college campus.

Details about the program are available online at the college’s website.

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