MOUNTAIN HOME — Outdoor band practice in 30-degree weather is no treat, but the payoff will be sweet for the 115-member Mountain Home High School Marching Band.
The students have been braving the cold to fine-tune their performances for two prestigious parades in balmy Florida this week.
The band is among a dozen high school bands nationwide selected to march in the 2009 Spherion Orlando Citrus Parade on Wednesday in downtown Orlando, Fla. The nationally televised parade is the kickoff celebration for Friday’s Capital One Bowl Game between Louisiana State University and Pennsylvania State University.
Today, the band will perform in the SpectroMagic Parade at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom in Orlando.
“We’ve been practicing outside a lot in the terrible cold. Doing a lot of fundraising too,” 17-year-old junior Emily Chism, who plays the piccolo, said during a recent practice session. “I think it’s real exciting that we’re getting the chance to do this.”
“It’s an amazing chance to show us off,” echoed Mariah Rodriquez, 17, who plays the French horn.
Rehearsals have included laps around the track at Bomber Stadium on the high school campus, so the musicians could perfect their steps and time their tunes for the two parade routes.
High school band director Tom Chentnik and ninthgrade band director Bill Maxwell kept close watch from their vantage points on the football field.
“The only thing I can’t simulate is it’s going to be 30 to 40 degrees warmer than this,” Chentnik called to the musicians over a bullhorn during a mid-December practice session.
Big-time parades are nothing new for the band, which performed in the 2006 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City.
Chentnik said the band tries to schedule a major event every three years and set its sights on the Orlando Citrus Parade about 18 months ago.
The band traveled by charter bus to Orlando for the seven-day trip at a costof about $1,000 per student. Chentnik said the band didn’t ask the school district for money but relied instead on student fundraising and assistance from the Mountain Home Band Foundation.
“We’ve had haunted houses. We’ve done a chili supper. We’ve done magazine renewals,” Chentnik said.
Band students and their parents sold more than 1,200 cookbooks produced by the Mountain Home Band Boosters and raised more than $8,000 for the Orlando trip.
“The kids have done other stuff, raking leaves and doing odd jobs to earn the money to pay their part of the trip,” the high school band director said.
Chism said the trip wasn’t possible without the help of the band boosters. She said the musicians are grateful to them. “They expect a lot out of us, too,” she added.
The Disney SpectroMagic Parade is a nighttime event on a three-quarter-mile route, Chentnik said. The parade features “half a million lights and miles of fiber optics that light up the night,” according to the Disney Magic Kingdom Web site.
“It’s one of their more prestigious events, so it’s a little bit harder to be selected in that parade,” according to Chentnik.
The band will perform “Joy to the World” and a selection from La Nouba by Cirque du Soleil.
The next morning, they’ll rise early and head to the staging area for the Citrus Parade. The parade is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. CST.
“The Citrus Parade is a1.4-mile route, so that’s just slightly longer than our normal parades here in town,” the band director said.
The band has selected “Soak Up the Sun” by Sheryl Crow for the Citrus Parade.
“It’s a great parade tune,” Chentnik said.
Two parades in less than 24 hours isn’t a stretch for the band, said Richard Zimmerman, a junior who plays snare drum. Zimmerman said it’s not unusual for the band to perform at home football games on a Friday night, then participate in marching competitions the next day.
In October alone, the band won the Delta Cup for overall best band at the 27th annual Paragould McDonald’s Invitational Marching Contest, earned first-division ratings at the Arkansas State Band and Orchestra Association Region I Marching Assessment, and placed in the top 10 in the Northwest Arkansas Invitational Marching Classic.
Hours of practices and performances forge close ties, said Rodriquez, a senior.
“We’re family. We’re our own little family,” she said. “We’re more than just band geeks. It’s a lot fun.”
The Citrus Parade will be televised nationally and internationally by a syndication company. No Arkansas stations are scheduled to televise the parade, according tothe parade Web site. KSPR in Springfield, Mo., which broadcasts in the Mountain Home area, plans a delayed broadcast of the parade Saturday at noon.
Arkansas, Pages 13 on 12/29/2009