While playing the trumpet for the North Syracuse High School band, in the 1960s, George Coble thought he had his one and only brush with celebrity.

“I sat next to Dick Gere – you know the actor, Richard Gere?” he said in 1991. “I sat right next to him in the trumpet section. That’s my claim to fame.”

His sister once cut the picture of Gere out of her brother’s yearbook.

Sorry, George.

But your life touched many more people than just that one moment next to a famous classmate.

Coble would go on to become a part of Syracuse’s soundtrack for decades.

He was the primary trumpeter for the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra, starting in 1971, a position he held, with a couple of breaks mixed in, until his retirement in 2009.

“Over the several years he has been in Syracuse, (Coble) has consistent

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