Dear Band Director...

An open letter to all of the band directors out there from you guard staff. 

Dear Band Director,

I am your guard instructor. I want to tell you a little about myself. First I want to say that with me, you have hired a professional. I was unable in college to major in color guard like your percussion instructor or woodwinds section leader. For my education, I had to start learning my craft in high school and then carry that into different realms of development through winter guard, drum corps, and even dance and acting classes. I may have a degree in education, psychology, or engineering, but I don't have a degree in color guard. This however, does not make me less intelligent, less educated, or less knowledgeable about the section you have hired me for.

I know that you have hired a drill writer. You might have even hired a designer or program coordinator to help you build your program to a level of excellence, that is competitive on the national music stage. I want you to know though, I am also a designer. I have ideas about what show should be chosen and how that show should be staged. I have ideas as to what equipment should be used and where. I can also fix the drill if we find it isn't working. You know what else I can do? I understand music. I can read it and my sensitivity to musicality allows me to create moments of beauty we call art.

I am a coach of young women and men. In the way I talk to them and coach them, can make or break their self-esteem, body image, and absolute enjoyment for their future in the activity we both love. It can even make or break your program. I can hinder and stall the success of your bands name just by my decision to NOT make your program a priority. What I have to know to make your color guard successful ranges from the mechanics of body conditioning, dance, equipment fundamentals, performance techniques, judging score sheets, an understanding of staging, components of colors and even the building of props. My very expertise can impact your General Effect, Design Analysis, Guard Caption, and sometimes even your music caption if just one judge decides to venture out of said caption. I am a professional.

I know that you have spent a lot of money hiring drill writers, music arrangers, and consultants that come to your band class and teach the nuances of music. You hired me, too. You want me to teach a daily class. You want me to stay up late at night designing costumes and then ordering those costumes to precise measurements, that will allow beauty to flow from the performers bodies just by the very essence of the way they stand on the field. You desire to hear, "...and in first place for color guard is...your guard." With that first place score will most likely come with high marks in general effect and ensemble analysis.

When the design company you hired has been paid their final check and your music consultants have flown back home...I will still be here. In fact, I will most likely be planning for the winter season on top of the planning for the fall marching band season. One thing I realize in color guard, is that we as an activity have failed in the promotion and advocacy of the training of proper conditioning, certified dance teachers, and even certified technicians specializing in the use of equipment. I know that you realize that there are guard instructors out there who have failed in keeping with their end of the bargain. They used the activity as a stepping stone to their ego. Some have even been fired for misconduct with students. Some are in jail. Some have been caught stealing funds from the guard itself. We know this happens. It also happens on your side as well. Our activity is fraught with issues of accountability. This however, does not make us all unprofessional and uneducated. I am not a neophyte to this activity, nor am I corrupt. I have honed a skill that is unmatched by the sheer way I've learned to lead young women into excellence beyond the pageantry arts. I am building the performers to be leaders of the nation they are about to inherit. Am I worth the money, when we take into account the absurd responsibility you have handed me night after night after night?

This is what I ask in return. I ask that you respect my work as much as you respect the work of the design company you hired for $10,000 that raped the till of finances for your day to day guard staff. Without proper pay, I cannot dedicate my time fully to your program, as I have bills to pay as well. So I will have to split my time, find a full time job, or just simply fit you in when I can. That is not what I want to do. I want to build a program and not just call it mine, but call it ours. To do that, you have to trust me. You need to include me in the design side of the program and not just hand me drill charts and say, "Here...write." I would like to be included in the pre-season...very pre-season discussions on show concept. I'm not an afterthought. I should be the first thought. You see, in this activity and in many, many programs, the design of the show and who should design that show comes first and those that will be around to bring that show to life comes second. I need you to reverse your thinking. One...this will cause you less stress. If you put the correct day to day staff in place...people you trust...people who are professionals and who can grow your program together, then the design will come easy. Programmatic issues will be handled in house and with less stress. It's easy to write a check. It's a lot harder to build a team and a team is what will make your program successful in the end.

There are no quick fixes and easy answers. To build a program takes dedication and decades. When your day to day guard staff is a second thought or the bastard child in your mind, then we will leave and move on. Your band will become just money to us. The reality is that you can hire the best names in the country to design your show and arrange your music, but without me...that great design becomes average and forgetful. Your first thought should have been, "Who will train my color guard to be the finest in the nation?" You would expect nothing less from yourself as a band director in front of young musicians, so why would you expect less and pay less and communicate less and trust less of your guard staff...We who are your day to day staff. We are the people who are in front of your guard, mostly young women, and the kids that are trusting you to bring in the best, as they stand with a flag in their hand waiting to hear the words, "...and 5,6,5,6,7,8."

We must not forget that with the very way I add nuance to effort changes in let's say the slight tilt of the head, in a moment when that one note, from that one soloist is heard off in the distance; I could make an audience weep. I can make them laugh by the way I train for performance. I can bring your show to life. I do bring your show to life! So I ask you to consider all of this as the nation begins band camp and the start of the fall season. Who is more valuable to building the name of your program that the community will cheer for as your band loads the buses to some far off show to earn trophies to be shown on the local news? Who is there sweating and laughing and crying with your students? Is it your day to day staff or the far away designer who posts pictures of their feet by the pool, while they write your drill and calling the kids in your band...dots?

Never forget that we know the names of every kid and they are more than just dots to us.

Music Was My First Love

“You’re the strangest person I ever met,” she said and I said, “You too,” and we decided we’d know each other a long time.”

When I write, I often…more often than not…write with a specific song in mind. I have found throughout my life, as many of us have, that music speaks to me when nothing or no one else can. There are times when even I don’t know how to find what’s lurking in the dark reaches of my soul. Music however, can do that. The right melody or right lyric can transform my thoughts from sadness to happiness or take me back in time to what seemed more innocent. When I heard Jason Ehleben’s song Wake while sitting at work listening to Pandora, I immediately saw myself in a world much different from the present. I felt a pleasure that only comes with the memories of childhood and the reflections of a life that once again sits on a precipice of change. With that, I connect you to this, which was written with Wake  playing in the background.

It’s been 31 years. Arrogance would tell me that in those 31 years I’ve seen it all, knowing full well “all” is still yet to come. I’ve shared in moments of pure joy and downright despair. I’ve traveled all over the country and at times (admittedly not as often as I would like) outside of the United States. I’ve been a witness or a participant in marriage, divorce, birth, jobs, job loss, and death. I’ve watched, as most of us do, the aging of my parents as I stand dismayed at the passage of time. It has been 31 years and there are times that the emotion through a song on the radio or the exact hint of the rain on the pavement on a hot summer day can take me back to the innocence unfettered by time. Looking back, music was my first love. 

Time. Dr. Seuss once asked the question.

“How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness how the time has flewn, How did it get so late so soon?”

31 years ago this summer I attended band camp as a high school freshmen. We were a band that went away to camp and standing on hot asphalt at the age of 14, there was no possible way that I could have foreseen how my life would be transformed into a world of music, marching, and friendship. I remember holding my flute and struggling with the concept of playing while moving, memorization, and perfection as an ensemble. I can’t say I remember many details about that time in my life, but I remember the feeling. I remember the people. This past week I got a chance to revisit my hometown of Nashville...Music City. On one very special Friday night I had the opportunity to have dinner with two friends from that time in my life. In all levels of rational thought, we only knew each other for a short time, but the struggles of those days in band connected us for life. Facebook has created incredible opportunities for my generation, that enable us to keep tabs on and catch up with people from our past. My generation is the first generation to get to middle age and not have to repeat the phrase, “I wonder what happened to such and such?” Nowadays, chances are that “such and such” will at the least know someone who knows someone who will report their whereabouts on Facebook. We are in a time when we can share pictures from days long gone, jarring a memory or two once forgotten. Social media is an amazing invention allowing us to stay in touch and if you aren't careful it can be dangerous. Too much visiting of the past can impede you from living in the present. However, sometimes visiting the past is necessary to be able to move into the future. There’s nothing though that Facebook does, that makes up for the face to face meeting of old friends sitting around reminiscing about the past and sharing in the present day questions of how our lives have turned out. In that dinner we talked of adolescent antics, how the times have changed, and our own personal failures. We spoke of despair we felt of friends we’ve lost along the way and how those friends have left an indelible mark on our lives. It was truly a special moment and we didn’t hide ourselves from each other. We were raw and we were real.

There seems to be an unspoken rule about friends formed on the field of music that no matter what, we will be real. We will be honest. If you aren’t then what’s the point? Why pretend you are more than you are? Why try to say you are happy when you aren’t? It’s those people who have been with you for decades, who cried with you when you were 15, that should be able to cry with you when you are 40. It’s an amazing gift in life to have someone who remembers when you were a child and who knows you as an adult. They are the ones when life beats you down who will tell you what an amazing person you have always been. They will see your beauty as a child see’s a butterfly, because they knew you before you became the butterfly you are today.

Later that night, we went and sat on the old practice field and talked. That’s when we could truly feel the authenticity of our lives. It was if God was giving us a brief moment to connect back to a time that allowed us to be truly human. Marching band, at least the one I was in, was not unlike any other sports team where you learned the lessons of life through the field of victory and defeat and I couldn’t help but wonder, if those that weren’t lucky enough to have what we had, still connect with old friends in similar ways? Do they have the bonds of a lifetime, because I know that personally I don’t connect with friends from Algebra class. I connect with friends from band. Ironically, the song Music Was My First Love, was our closer in my 10th grade year. It's a song that would define my life.

In the end, I looked over the practice field a realized that I really couldn’t remember any specifics about that time. The details are fading with age and the laugh lines that contour my face. It’s all now an amalgam created by time, but in that amalgam made up of friendship and music, all I could feel was love. I couldn’t remember the details, but I remembered the music played by people unimpeded by time. As we begin a new season of band camps, my hope for this new generation of kids is to be in the moment. Feel the heat of the sun on your face and embrace the moments of struggle. Find your tribe and stick with them, because when you are my age, you will want someone who remembers the details of you.

Hey Freshmen Band Parents...THIS Is What Your Kid Just Signed Up For

To all the parents out there:

If I were to tell you that your kid was about to go on a journey of self exploration, that would take them through the inside of their soul and back, would you support it?

What if I told you that the values that were taught by you, would be reinforced by caring adults in a safe and controlled environment and in this environment, the values of integrity, honesty, responsibility and restraint would be augmented with hard work and discipline. Four years of music education and competition, coupled with physical fitness and conditioning would give your child the life skills desperately needed in the work force. Skills such as conflict resolution, internal motivation, creativity, and sense of team would walk with them upon graduation and would dictate their life's work as they faced the world on their own. Would you encourage it?

If you knew that your child would be held to the highest expectations by adult role models that pushed them to become more than they ever imagined, building a sense of self-worth and strength of character that would carry them through life, would you pay for the experience? What if your child was learning the skills needed to be a leader that would one day lead our planet into a better direction than it is today? You wouldn't think twice would you?

If you knew your child was getting a fitness regime equivalent to a sports team and time away from the computer, smart phone, t.v., and video games wouldn't you move Heaven and earth to make sure they participated with all your love and support? Of course you would and as a parent...so would I.

If you are lucky, your child has just joined the high school marching band and with any luck, that band program is going to prepare your child for life when other children are preparing to take a test. Our children today are inundated with a testing environment that has forced a reduction in the arts and physical education in most communities. We know that children are being exposed to more technology at earlier ages, which plays into the hands of the obesity epidemic and diminished peer to peer social skills. We live in a world where through the images of two dimensional machines, we have found ourselves desensitized to the world around us, taking its toll on a generation of children. If we look closely, we can see how fear has allowed a sense of community to erode, whether that fear is warranted or not.

What if we could, in our own little world, through our own little way, bring back just a small portion of what we had always envisioned for our children and what if this could be done by putting an instrument, drum stick, or flag pole in your child's hand?

So how does marching band help? What exactly are they about to learn? Simple. Everything you have ever taught your child will lead to a moment of clarity and maturity for them as they are held to the highest standard of excellence. They will learn the following 10 lessons:

• Personal responsibility by the simple mantra of "early is on time and on time is late."

• Concepts of how to follow in the face of leaders who may or may not always be right.

• Leadership by being a part of the team as opposed to ruling over the team.

• When everyone works hard, then everyone wins. When one person falls short of their responsibilities, then the entire team is damaged.

• Sometimes hard work leads to failure anyway, but the journey is where the joy is really felt.

• Hard work is just that...it's hard. It's not meant to be easy and it's not for everyone. As Tom Hanks once said, "If it was easy, everyone would do it." 

• Not every thought we have is meant to be shared and not every opinion is welcomed. There are people in charge and it's those people's responsibility to stay focused on the big picture. Sometimes in life you are just a piece of that picture and you will not have all the information to make an informed decision.

• There is no easy path to perfection and perfection is a game that can't be won. 

• It's o.k. to cry and ask for help.

• Friendship is one of the most single important elements of life. It's good friends that stand by our side in times of struggle and in times of joy. It's good friends that hold the mirror to our face and say, "Here! This is who you are. You are beautiful and your are worthy." Good friends will also tell us to get off our pity pot and get to work. 

I want you to think about something. As adults we know that the "real world" only gets harder the older we get. I remember thinking how hard college was with my schedule all of a sudden being 100% my responsibility. Then I joined the work force and college just seemed like a damn joy ride through the countryside. In the work force I quickly learned that it was someone else's company and I was under the auspices of their rules. I had to learn how to negotiate my ideas at the right time and inright moment. I had to learn to keep my mouth shut, because my opinion wasn't always welcomed. Then, it only got harder. Life threw curves forcing me to navigate marriage and divorce. I learned that there never seems to be enough money to get to payday and I have to make choices to spend or not to spend. When I thought that I had finally reached the point in life where I could sit back and take a deep breath and say, "Whew...that was hard. Now I can breathe." Yeah no. It didn't happen. Then came the kids and all of the struggles that come with raising your own version of yourself. Each stage in life brings different challenges and with all of those challenges, through every single one, I have always looked back on the lessons taught to me on a football field while holding a flag in my hand. 

I have learned that in those moments of facing consequences for not knowing my part, that I was preparing for a cut throat workforce that expects deadlines to be met. When I had a solo part and did not achieve that solo to perfection, I learned the lessons of determination to go and try again. To get better. To never give up. Standing in the hot sun in the middle of August, when my body was tired and I was thirsty, I learned to look around me and realize that we were all in it together and that I was not special, but part of a much bigger plan that involved a team. These are the life lessons that make us better people. Arrogance, laziness, lack of preparation, single mindedness, and complaining will ultimately lead to dead ends in life and it was in marching band, winter guard, and drum corps where I learned and tested the initial results of these lessons. In the end, it's the memories and friendships of the field that I take with me when the sadness of life takes hold and that gets me through the rough times. However, it's the hard fought lessons of youth, while standing on a football field holding a flag, that has allowed me time and time again to stand on my own with my head held high and say, "I can face another day." 

Welcome to our world. Enjoy. 

The Silent Thoughts of a Seasoned Guard Instructor the Night Before the First Show

Last Saturday I celebrated the start of my 20th band season in Florida. On this somewhat august occasion, the eve of the Seminole Sound Spectacular, I ran through all the shows I've taken to Seminole. I thought about the bands I had been with; some good and some bad. I thought about the many hours I have stood behind the middle school across the street from the stadium, warming up this colorguard or that one. Counting, clicking, 5,6,7,8ing. I am 44 years old. Some would say that I'm a little too long in the tooth to be standing out in the hot sun, warming up 15 year old's holding flag poles. On the night before, I was thinking and planning the day, when I had a frightening thought. I looked over at my seven year old son and thought, "Dear God. There are kids in the guard who were 6 when he was born. Six!"

So I was picking out my outfit for the day, when I wondered what my peers were thinking and if their thoughts were the same. Mine went something like this.

 "I wonder what I'll wear tomorrow. Who will I see? I should look cute."

 "Who am I kidding? I'm 44 years old. It's going to be 150 degrees outside. Can I just wear the same thing I'm wearing to the morning rehearsal? No. That will look tacky."

 "Crap I have rehearsal tomorrow morning. I have to get up around 7 a.m...on a Saturday. I'm so over this lifestyle. I have to go to practice, come home, shower, get ready, drive to the show, warm up the guard. When will I get to eat?'

"I guess I'll wear something cute, I never get to dress cute anymore."

"When's the earliest I can have a cocktail?"

"The Hunger Games comes on tomorrow night. I really want to see the Hunger Games. I should record it. Nah. I'll be home. I can't deal with all the other bands. I'll come home after we perform, but not too soon. I want to seem supportive of the other teams."

"So I have two hours with the guard at practice tomorrow. What do I want to accomplish? It's going to be so hot. I hate the heat. While I'm at it, I hate Florida. Why is it so hot in October here! Just once can we get the first show where it isn't 95 degrees in the shade?'

"Will 8:00 a.m. be too early for a cocktail?"

"We haven't done the opener since band camp. I should probably work on that. I hope I can still remember the counts. I don't have time to deal with the counts. I'll just yell at them and tell them to blend."

"Come to think of it. We haven't really done basics since band camp. I'll just tell them to blend."

"Who is in our class? Who can we beat? I really don't have time to deal with the opener. We barely got the 3rd song on the field last week. I hope they practiced it. They didn't practice. I have to work that first."

"Crap. We still have to work getting on and off the field."

"Who is on the panel? Oh I don't care. If we can't get on and off the field it won't matter whose judging us."

"I wonder if anyone will be there who will hang out with me."

"If there isn't anyone to hang with, then I could easily go home after we perform and no one will care. I could be home in time to see Hunger Games; with a pint of Haagen dazs and a cocktail."

"My life is sad."

"Wouldn't it be fun to win guard? Who am I kidding. We won't win guard. We don't even know how to get on and off the field and the opener is still a mess."

"Just once I would like to go to the first contest with the entire show finished. Why does it take so long for bands in Florida to get their shows done? Why do marching band shows have to be so long? Do we really need 5 songs?"

"I can't do this anymore. I'm too old. I'm too tired. I hate standing outside in that hot, never ending, scorching, blistering sun."

"Everything I have in my closet makes me look fat. I need to go buy something new after rehearsal."

"No. I refuse. Not for marching band. I'll just wear jeans. No, jeans will be too hot. I'll wear shorts."

"I need to go to bed. 7:00 a.m. comes early. I should stop at Dunkin Donuts and get coffee."

"I need to have a drink before I go to bed. No telling when I'll get another one."

"Why don't they sell cocktails at band contests?"

"I hope the kids get some sleep tonight."

"Please. They probably went out after the football game to God knows where, to do God knows what."

"Yeah. I need a drink before bed. I'll be up all night if I don't."

"I can't believe tomorrow is another Seminole Sound. I was 28 years old doing my 4th Seminole Sound, when my guard captain was born. I am so freaking old."

"Yeah...I definitely need a drink before I go to bed."

"I need to get psyched up for this. Change my mindset."

"I hope they are ready to go. I can do this. We can do this. Get it Shelba. You've got experience. You've got wisdom. Woman power! Get it girl!"


5 minutes later...

glass...ice...Absolute...orange juice...cranberry juice...mix...shake...pour




"Cheers! And may the odds be ever in my favor!" 

My Hope At The Start Of A New School Year And A New Marching Band Season

I have a hope for the children of our nation. This hope comes from a person who has worked with children and worked for children. Mostly though, this is not coming from Shelba the guard instructor or professional in adolescent development. This hope is coming from a parent. I am a parent of a 6 year old and here is my hope for a new school year and a new marching band season.

You are a staff member at the local high school marching band. You are a band director, an instructor for the percussion line or part of the guard staff. You are a consultant that comes in once a week and teaches the brass. You write the drill. You are a choreographer. You are someone who will touch the life of a young person in a profound way and whether you like it or not, the hopes of the parents and children are entrusted with you and this is why.

The parents who raise children in the 21st Century are not existing in a time that they grew up in or that you grew up in. Their children are in a world that was virtually unimaginable 20 years ago. The children grow up in a world where information is at their doorstep 24/7. They have access to information and media all day, everyday. They have access to the world and guess what...the world has access to them. Think about that. As a parent, you live in a time where the world can access your child just by the click of a mouse. They have been raised to fear mankind because of words like stranger danger and cyber-bullying. Bullying is a crime. Hazing is a crime. Sexting the wrong person is a crime. The wrong Facebook message sent in the fit of the underdeveloped adolescent mind, can get them expelled from school. Fear is the lifestyle of a parent in the 21st Century. Through a media culture of 500 stations, Netflix, and YouTube, children have exposure to every form of sex, violence, and abuse known to man and they have access to all of that with a smart phone in their pocket. The culture our children live in is a culture of, "I want it now," and guess what...they didn't create it. We did. Just look at the fame of reality television stars.

Then there is school. Standardized Testing is the equivalent to a four letter word to a parent. What if they don't pass? Is my child's future doomed? Many schools are set up as literal meat grinders and parents are at a loss as to how to navigate the system and how to be the supportive person their parents were. They fight to get their child in an "A" school. They put their children on lists for charter schools...a system set up to pit parents and schools against each other. The system does not allow for our children's teachers to teach creative thought. By the time their child reaches 9th grade, their first year of marching band, the parent is worn out. They have been fighting for their child's education since they were told their child had to read by the time they were 4. It's a race and the parent's are exhausted. They are financially spent.

As a parent you can't win. If you spank your child  you could be called an abuser. If you don't spank your child you are a loser liberal parent raising a spoiled brat, who is destroying the future of our country. You can't leave your child alone anymore, because of the fear the media instills in you that your child will either burn the house down or someone will break into the house and molest them. Sports and activities are expensive. Parents are told on a daily basis through social media how bad children are today and in turn, how bad they are for raising them in this world of "too much." Saving for college is almost impossible. Paying for childcare almost killed us. We see our children's future and we are scared. It's a dog eat dog world and our children are the chew toy, by a political field selling our children to the lowest bidder.  As a parent, we only want our children to have a fighting chance. We aren't asking for them to win every trophy and we aren't asking for them to become the next Steve Jobs. Our hope is that they don't become the next reality television tragedy or the next statistic of teen pregnancy, drug addiction, or school drop out, because no one cared enough to say, "You can do it. You are smart. You are creative. You are NOT this test."

So here is my plea. Here is my hope. It is you. You the staff member of the local marching band. It is you the coach. We need your help. We want our children to go on to that practice field and be shown love through discipline...with a side of compassion. We want you to hold our children accountable, but we also want you to allow for creativity. Feel free to come down on our children when they don't pull their weight for the team, but make sure it is a fair game. Give them a voice in the creative process, even if it is only in a routine they make up for a song played in the stands at a football game. Show them that school is fun, because marching band is a part of it. Be their mentors. Seek to find the gem inside them, without coddling them. Listen to them as they share their fears of their future. Know that not all children are respectful and disciplined, but most are. Keep an open mind and don't become distracted by the one child who refuses to play by the rules.

Be empathetic to the parent who works two jobs and still manages to have their child at every practice and shows up to every performance. Be patient if a parent shows up late to pick up their child, because their boss wouldn't let them leave work early. Thank the parent who raises funds, even if all they could sell was a few candy bars. Support the parents who run the concession stand. Work to understand the situation of a child who can't afford the fees, but desperately needs music to give them hope. Here's the thing. We need you to help our children see that not everything in the world is fearful and some things like music and dance can be pure. Show them that playing music from the soul and dancing from the heart can be the future that was not shown to them while they were being forced to regurgitate facts for a state test. Every once in a while, turn the the parents in the stands and say, "Thank you for all you do and all you have done for our children." Believe that most of the parents are doing their best and are working from a sense of love, but also a sense of fear for their children. Work together with the parents. Seek to find a middle ground. Teach the parent's the importance of their role in their child's musical development, but don't trash them if they don't put the effort in you were hoping for. You might not know the entire story. Remember, some parents won't understand the value of the marching band, but most will.  Show our community that the teacher, the parent, and the child can work together for the future, in this world where teacher and parent aren't always on the same page.  We as parents are somewhat jaded, by a system that seems to work against us...much like the teachers. We are looking for hope that our children will leave their career as a student with a new found love for learning. We are hoping that music will give them that fire.

More than anything though, don't give up on the children. The one who needs you most might be the one desperately trying to quit. You might be all they have. Your band program might be the only thing keeping them in school and could be the difference between diploma or drop out.

We are all in this together and together we can make school a place where the community comes together for the future. I believe in this. We can do it.

Have a great school year and a great season.

Marching Band: It Can Change The World

Yesterday in my mind's eye, I saw a group of kids. They were about 14 years old and it was the summer before their first year of high school. They were standing in a band room nervous and curious. They were waiting for something that they thought would give them an avenue to new friends and involvement in a school activity. Many of them knew they would never make a sports team and they weren't cheerleader material. Some of them were overweight. Some of them struggled with popularity, because they were shy or different. They made good grades and many were considered geeks. Many of them were bullied in middle school. They stood in this band room as an incoming class of freshmen holding their flute and trumpet cases. Some of them were holding a flag pole for the first time in their entire lives wondering what this "thing" was and some for the first time were about to hit a drum with a pair of sticks. On this special day, their lives were about to change because on this day, they would start their very first marching band practice. On this day, they would start a journey that would lead them down a path where they would meet the people they would spend countless hours with, as well as share their laughter and their tears. On this day they would begin to live a life many can only dream of and this journey will be called...community

Community. It's the gift I wish I could give every child in the world. We are lacking it. We are a world of people fighting our personal apathy and turning a blind eye to a world that is bleeding. We are a world finding reasons to fight and reasons to turn away from our fellow man. Those kids who are starting their first day of practice are about to learn how to save the world although they don't know it. They are about to learn about passion and learn about community. Marching band is going to give them all of this and it's going to change their lives forever.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I believe that pageantry can change the world. I'm an idealist. I always have been. I'm the person that everyone loves to hate because I really do want to do what the old Coke commercial says and teach the world to sing in perfect harmony. I believe in pageantry. I believe in what it teaches kids and the number of kids we can reach in any given school year is more than any other activity.  In many schools, the band reaches more kids than all the other activities combined. More than anything though, I believe in the passion that is generated in a person as they go through the course of a season. The skills they learn are lifelong skills and the people they meet will stay with them forever.

Pageantry ignites a fire in a person. If only for a brief moment in time, it makes a child believe in themselves and the community that supports them. It's a microcosm of the perfect world. In a perfect world, in Shelba's perfect world, community takes precedence over the individual. In my community the adults look out for kids that aren't even their own. The kids have a safe place to "hang out" while getting an education and learning new life skills. The adults in this community are educated and with this education they pass their wisdom on to the youth they mentor. Youth are seen as a participant in this community and not a victim of it. The youth are given responsibilities and held to a standard of those responsibilities. They aren't abused and they aren't coddled. The effort of the individual is meant to support the larger group and not to support one's own ego or self congratulatory personality.

In the microcosm of pageantry, the adults and the youth are one. The failures, the negativity, and the egotistical actions of one has drastic impact on the whole. The counter to that is the successes, the positivity, and the charitable actions of one can change the whole for the good and forever. It's people discovering teamwork and hard work. It's children learning that giving up on the group is NOT AN OPTION. 

In our community called pageantry, the kids are learning about responsibility. They are learning how to take care of others. They are planning and creating. Their imagination's are on fire! They are learning to win with grace and lose with a desire to keep pushing forward. Emotions are shared freely and hugs are given often. Adults admit that they have much to learn and the youth are there to teach them. Patience is practiced often and lessons are learned when that patience is given away without thought. In this community; parents, teachers, and children all play a role in the support of the bigger picture and respect for all is the cornerstone to success. In this world kids learn to take care of their environment and "leave things better than they found it." They learn to be punctual with a simple phrase, "Early is on time and on time is late." They will get fresh air and exercise. Someone will care if they go home at night and will work to make sure they keep up with their studies. This community is growing the children of tomorrow and everyone is playing a part.

Diversity is the driving force of this community. Everyone is accepted.

Gay? No problem.
Woman? Leaders rise from both sexes.
Black? Really? We don't see color.
Disabled? We'll find a place for you.
Don't speak english? Music and dance are the language we speak.
Deaf? Blind? Yep. Join us. You will teach us how to listen to music in new dimensions.
Young? This activity was made for you.
Old? We need your wisdom.

This is a world where acceptance is not just practiced, but expected.

This world of pageantry is the world John Lennon spoke about. It's about people living for the day and living life in peace. When these kids leave their pageantry experience they have learned so much more than music. They have learned what "community" should look like and act like. It is a group of people working toward one goal, struggling together day to day and not leaving anyone behind. To me, there is no question as to why so many of us have stuck around for so long. Many of us have stated that we would rather be on the field or in the gym isolated from the real world, because our world of pageantry is where our souls feel most at home. It's safe and it's the community that we long to see.

Kids all over the country will enter this world of pageantry for the first time in the next few weeks. The doors of life are about to open. Let's make sure to support them and teach them well. Let's reach out to our community and teach those who don't know what it is all about so they see more than just a halftime show. Let us seek to support the families who can't afford the opportunity to participate. Let's strive to educate. We can do more than win band contests. We can change the world.




As we start a new marching band season I encourage all of you reading this to give back to your community. Sponsor a kid. Pay their dues or a partial amount of their dues. Buy the local marching band a set of flags. Buy some drum sticks. Offer to pay for one sabre or the repair fees on one instrument. If nothing else, go to a show and cheer. Buy concessions.  Support the kids and support their passion. A donation that is specific in nature lets the music program you are donating to know how important your gift is and allows the kids to see how your kind gift was used for them.  Let's give back to them everything that was given to us and re-vision our community.