In 1997, Dr. Dye left Rice to rebuild the band program at the school now known as University of West Georgia, a position he held for only one year before moving on to a directorship at the University of Notre Dame in the fall of 1998. Mr. Sean Williams was hired in the summer of 1997 to serve the MOB and the Rice Band Department as interim director until a permanent replacement for Dye could be found. That replacement was Dr. Robert Cesario, who came from Tulsa, Oklahoma and took up the baton in the fall of 1998. After four years, Dr. Cesario resigned as Director of Rice Bands in the summer of 2002, and was succeeded by Mr. Charles Throckmorton.