The Pasadena Tournament of Roses Parade: five and a half miles in the California sunshine; the treacherous, 110-degree “TV Corner;” one-million spectators on the street; fifty-million TV viewers world-wide. For 129 years the Rose Parade has been America’s New Year’s Celebration and America’s premier marching band event. This year, the Louisburg High School Marching Wildcat Band had the great honor of being one of only ten U.S. high school bands to march in the Rose Parade and the first Kansas band to march in the Rose Parade since 1998. It’s been the honor of my professional life to lead the Louisburg Band for the last thirty-nine years and our performance in California on New Year’s Day, 2018 is and will certainly be the highlight of my career.
Over the years, the Louisburg Band has marched in St. Louis, Chicago, Dallas, Indianapolis, Washington, DC, and New York City. We first applied for the Rose Parade in 2008 and it took five applications before being accepted. With each application, my students learned about setting high goals and about working hard and working together to reach for those goals. Each application was a valuable learning experience. Each was a GOLDEN LESSON, an exercise in tenacity that will carry kids far in life. This is why, after all, we send our children to school! Even though it took five tries, preparing each application was a learning process for the band and was well-worth the effort.
The Tournament of Roses Music Committee selects bands based on a variety of criteria including musicianship, marching ability, entertainment value, and the uniqueness of the band’s story. The application includes photos, resumes, and letters of recommendation. The most important component is a five minute video which includes an introduction about the band, video footage of the band, in full uniform, marching around a corner, and highlights of the band’s field show. The Music Committee holds a “Popcorn Night” when they watch the videos and make recommendations to the Tournament of Roses president.
Rehearsing for, and preparing the application video was a huge class project each time we applied. The folks at Tournament of Roses were very helpful and supportive even when our application was not selected. After our fourth attempt, the music advisor told me, “We love your band. We love your story of a small, patriotic Kansas town in the heart of America. But you have to be bigger and louder because when you come around the famous TV Corner (the corner of Orange Grove and Colorado Boulevard) there will be one million people on the street. You have to grab their attention as well as the attention of all the TV cameras.” We have 135 members in our marching band in a school of only 535 students. Still, they wanted more. The advisor said, “Why don’t you include your 8th graders?” So that’s what we did.
I went to the City Council and asked them to shut down Main Street so that we could make our video. It turned into a community effort. On a late-April morning in 2016, after weeks of dedicated practice, our band lined up in downtown Louisburg. The police and fire departments blocked the streets while community members waving U.S. flags lined the sidewalks. We had cameras on rooftops and a drone overhead. With nearly 200 students, it sounded like judgement day when our band marched around the corner playing the Cathedral Chorus from “Russian Christmas Music.” That’s how we nailed it and we were selected to march in the 2018 Rose Parade.
Word came in mid-October leaving us just fourteen months to prepare. In addition to Louisburg, nine other U.S. high school bands were chosen as well as several college and military bands and bands from Japan, Canada, Panama, and Australia.
When we learned that we had been selected, it occurred to me that a tremendous tool had been placed in our hands. It was now our job to use that tool to bring out the best in ourselves, our students, our school and our community. This was an opportunity to lift up our kids, to lift up Louisburg and be the best we could be. I divided our work into four areas or “pillars” of concentration:
Musical and Marching Preparation
The Rose Parade gave us an opportunity to hone our musical and marching skills. We added extra performances including the Maple Leaf Parade in Baldwin City and the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Kansas City, Missouri where we won first place. Our summer marching band camp was extended extra days this year. Our regular rehearsals include marching fundamental drills, music rehearsal, parade marching, and field marching.
We painted a “to-scale” replica of Pasadena’s TV Corner on our middle school parking lot. We spent hours and hours, days and days marching the corner using ropes and a drone to make sure it was perfect.
Physical Conditioning
The Rose Parade is five and a half miles long! It’s not something that one can just jump off the bus and do. We organized a concerted effort to prepare every member of the band for perhaps one of the most daunting physical challenges they had ever faced.
The Garmin Company donated Vivofit fitness watches for every member of the band. The goal was to walk at least 10,000 steps per day. We set up an on-line spreadsheet and students tracked their steps. They received a dollar in their trip fund account for each day they walked at least 10,000 steps. In total, our group recorded 150 million steps and thirteen of our members each walked more than two million steps.
During the summer, we met at the track twice a week for two hours of walking and marching. In the fall, we held five evening neighborhood parades. We would meet at the high school and then march to different neighborhoods in town with police escorts. Our final neighborhood parade was five and a half miles in full uniform.
I’m pleased to report that, although other bands experienced losses, not a single Louisburg student dropped out during the parade. Our band has a saying: “The Band Makes Me Strong!”
Fund Raising
The trip from Kansas to California cost over a half million dollars. The price per student was $1,750.00. Our goal was for half of the cost to be paid through fund-raising projects with the other half paid out-of-pocket. Fund-raising and donations far exceeded expectations with the average student earning 71% and only having to pay 29% out-of-pocket.
Our largest fund-raiser was the Letter of Support campaign. Students wrote letters to family and friends describing the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that they were given to represent the Heart of America in the Rose Parade. We have received donations from ALL 50 states, the District of Columbia, and two foreign countries totaling over $187,000.00.
The Super Band Garage Sale has been a springtime tradition in Louisburg for 27 years. We fill the high school gym with donated garage sale items and run the event for three days. The sale also includes a silent auction, a new mattress sale, food, and music. In one weekend, the band garage sale earned $44,000.00 for the band trip fund.
Our band held a number of other fund-raisers including car washes, concession stands, restaurant events, yard sign sales, and raffles.
More than $68,000.00 was donated to the band from individuals, corporations, community groups, and foundations. The largest was an unsolicited donation of $25,000.00 from Cheerios and Walmart “Moments of Good.” The presentation was made at a surprise pep rally on the morning of November 28, 2017.
From the outset, we determined that no student should be left behind because of financial need. We established a scholarship fund and an application process. The Scholarship Committee awarded over $10,000.00 to students in need. We met our goal: no one was left behind because their family could not afford the trip.
Positive Patriotism
One of the core principles of our band program is what we call “Positive Patriotism.” Positive patriotism is patriotism in action. Patriotism is supporting our community, supporting our classmates, and supporting our band. It’s being good citizens of the band. Positive patriotism is the understanding that using our skills, our talents, and our gifts to lift up the community is incumbent on every citizen. Flags and flourishes, rousing music, and intense dedication are the norm when the Wildcat Band performs.
As musicians, we use our musical skills to benefit our community and our country. In past years, we have performed wreath-laying ceremonies at important national sites and memorials. We have performed for professional sports events including those of the Kansas City Royals, the Washington Nationals, the St. Louis Cardinals, and the Indianapolis 500.
We regularly participate in local ceremonies such as the National Day of Prayer, Patriot Day, and Veterans Day Ceremonies. We salute U.S. veterans at every home football game by playing the five service tunes and presenting the flags of the Navy, Marines, Army, Coast Guard, and Air Force.
Lance Tibbet, the President of Tournament of Roses, and his wife Amelia visited Louisburg during Labor Day weekend. We included them in our annual Labor Day Parade. Mr. Tibbet says, “A great band comes from a great community.” Louisburg rallied behind the band. We could not have done it without the backing of our town. The entire community was projected on the world stage when the Wildcat Band marched in the parade.
This year, the Tournament of Roses initiated a new award: The Tournament of Roses Michael D. Sewell Service Through Music Award. The Louisburg Band was selected as the first recipient of this special award created by The Tournament of Roses and the family of Pickerington, Ohio Music Director Mike Sewell. The award was presented at a breakfast meeting of all Tournament of Roses band directors on December 31. It came as a complete surprise to me. Our band was chosen from among all the bands marching in this year’s parade. The award recognizes our efforts to use music to lift up and support the community, our positive patriotism.
California, Here We Come!
Our band has never traveled to the west coast before. Our traveling party included 186 students, 70 adult chaperones and staff, 6 bus drivers, and 2 tour guides; 264 total. It’s like moving an army. We had to transport, house, feed, uniform, equip, and train our members. We attended to their physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. We deployed, executed, and returned everyone home safely.
This year’s California trip was a nine-day excursion. We departed from Louisburg early on December 26 aboard six chartered busses. We spent the night in Albuquerque and arrived in Los Angeles late on December 27. We were up early the next morning for a three-hour rehearsal at Occidental College followed by an afternoon at Santa Monica Beach and Pier. We quickly realized that what Kansas really needs is an ocean! That evening, we had dinner at Hard Rock Café at the Universal Studios City Walk.
Friday, December 29 was our day at Disneyland. Normally, for a school group to perform at Disneyland, there is a long application and audition process. But if you’re a Rose Parade band, you’re automatically in. The park was at capacity that day, 80,000 guests. Our band marched from the back of the park to the front stopping at Main Street to perform “The Magnificent Seven.” The rest of the day was spent enjoying the park capped off with fireworks in the evening.
Every Rose Parade band is expected to also perform a field show at the Tournament of Roses Bandfest which is held at the football stadium of Pasadena City College. Louisburg performed in the afternoon of Saturday, December 30. It’s an exhibition, not a competition. But it includes the best bands from around the world. Louisburg’s show was “From the Heartland” featuring “Home on the Range” and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
One of the great traditions of Tournament of Roses is the trading of pins. Each band commissions custom-made pins that are all approved by the Tournament. In the parking lot of Bandfest, Louisburg students had great fun trading pins with band members from across the U.S. and around the world, especially with the band from Japan. Although language was a barrier, the young people figured out a way to communicate and pins were traded. Getting to meet band members and band directors from all over was one of the greatest joys of the trip.
Whenever I take my band on a trip, I always schedule a special, patriotic performance that is deeply significant in addition to the main performance of the trip. When we went to Indianapolis for the Indy 500 Parade, we stopped to lay a wreath at the tomb of Abraham Lincoln and we performed at Busch Stadium for the St. Louis Cardinals on Memorial Day. When we went to Washington, DC for the National Independence Day Parade, we also performed wreath-laying ceremonies at the Navy Memorial and at the tomb of John Philip Sousa. When we went to New York for the NYC Veterans Day Parade, we stopped to lay a wreath at the Flight 93 National Memorial.
For this year’s trip to California, the Louisburg Band had the great honor of being asked to perform at the Enduring Heroes Monument in Defenders Park at a New Year’s ceremony. The ceremony took place the evening of Sunday, December 31. Defenders Park sits right at TV Corner and the ceremony was only hours before the start of the parade. Included were the Mayor of Pasadena, the Pasadena Chief of Police, the Tournament of Roses President, the artist who created the Enduring Heroes Monument, military brass, several Gold Star families, and, of course, the band from Louisburg, Kansas. We made many new friends that day.
Wake-up time was 3:30 a.m. on January 1, parade day. Fully uniformed, our band ate breakfast on the busses as we traveled with a police motorcade to the staging area of the parade. Off the busses in five minutes, a quick restroom break, and we were lined up in the “chute” ready to go. Only three adults are allowed on the street with our band: my assistant, Brett Butler, my color guard instructor, Kassy Miller, and myself. All the rest of our adults and chaperones are sitting in the bleachers three and a half miles down the parade route. It doesn’t matter, our kids are well-trained. They could do it without us. All I had to do was smile and wave!
The Stealth flies over, cameras are rolling, and the 129th Tournament of Roses Parade begins! The theme of the 2018 parade is “Making a Difference.” Marching around the corner was the thrill of a lifetime, a life-changing event for all of us. Our band played “Patriots on Parade” by Robert W. Smith. We played it over and over without a stop for a drum break all the way around the corner and for another two blocks. We were told that the value of the TV time as the band marched around the corner is three million dollars.
For the rest of the parade, we alternated between drum cadences, “Patriots on Parade,” and “This is My Country.” The music, the marching, and the cheering never stopped. The second thrill came when we marched by our own home-crowd who were waving purple pom-poms and screaming with joy as we played our own “Wildcat Fight Song.”
At the end of the parade, the drum majors blew the whistle and the band came to a halt, holding perfect attention. Those Kansas kids are STRONG. They could have easily done another five miles. But what was waiting was even better. Tournament of Roses provides In-N-Out burgers for every band member in the parade. It turned into a big celebration at Victory Park as students from around the world enjoyed a giant picnic under the warm Southern California sun.
The rest of the trip included a big blast-off dinner at Universal Studios and two more days on the road coming home. We returned to LHS at 1:00 a.m. ready to start second semester at 7:55 the next morning! Yes, I slept on the floor in my office that night.
What does it all mean? I have had the privilege of directing the Louisburg High School Band my entire career. It’s my one and only and the honor of my professional life. Before the trip, I told the kids that marching in the Rose Parade would not be the biggest thing that happens in their lives. No, there will be bigger days, perhaps the day they get married, the days when their children are born, or the days of significance in their careers. But I’m willing to bet that in the end, marching in the Rose Parade with their high school band will be among the top ten events of their lives. And that’s why this was worth all the effort, all the work, all the sweat, and all the money that it took. From now on, my students can point to the TV every New Year’s Day and say to their grandchildren, “I did that.” And the rest of us can point to the TV and say, “We did that, we made that happen!”
Kansas Bands in the Rose Parade
- 1958 Shawnee Mission District High School Merriam
- 1961 Dodge City High School
- 1967 Bucklin High School
- 1970 Arkansas City Bulldog Marching Band
- 1971 Leavenworth Pioneer Marching Band
- 1976 Dodge City High School
- 1981 Liberal High School
- 1983 Leavenworth Pioneer Marching Band
- 1991 Olathe North High School
- 1998 Derby High School
- 2018 Louisburg High School
