The husband-and-wife band-directing duo at Vicksburg High School won’t be back next year after nine years of leading the Vicksburg Pride.

Vance and Dale Wiggington made the announcement Thursday on the last day of school. Vance Wiggington said they are moving to his hometown of Tishomingo, about 30 miles outside Tupelo, to help care for his mother.

He said the decision was made suddenly after his mother suffered a heart attack last month.

“I guess it’s just the ways of providence sometimes when these things happen,” he said.

The Wiggingtons have been working together for 17 years and came to Vicksburg by way of El Paso, Texas, where they taught for about a year. They had moved to Texas from Booneville, Miss., and moved back to Mississippi when Dale Wiggington’s mother became ill.

That’s when they came to Vicksburg, where they taught band to an average of 430 students each year in grades 7 to 12.

In 2003, under the direction of Wiggington, the band moved into a new 14,123-square-foot band room, the largest in the state.

“We’ve been blessed with just a lot of wonderful students to teach,” said Vance Wiggington.

Vicksburg High School Principal Charlie Tolliver attributed the continued success of the band program to the Wiggingtons.

“They believed in what they were doing and they worked really hard,” Tolliver said.

Vance Wiggington said he is currently talking to the Tupelo school district about a position there with the school’s band. Tolliver said that Vicksburg High School will begin advertising to fill the job here.