ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, August 18, 1996 TAG: 9608190004
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-22 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: EMORY
SOURCE: LISA APPLEGATE/STAFF WRITER
It's 7:30 in the morning and through the muggy August haze comes the Golden Cougars Marching Band from Pulaski High School.
You can hear them before you see them: 130 pairs of marching feet attached to sleepy-eyed teens. Across the small manicured campus of Emory & Henry College, this attuned mass of musical talent heads to breakfast.
The marching, their director says, unifies the group, instills discipline and makes them hungry.
Most importantly, it prepares them for yet another day of sweating in the afternoon sun, waiting out the rain, sleeping through practice, stumbling over each other on the 50-yard line, and practicing the same four songs until their hands blister or their mouths ache.
They've united as a team to achieve success in the ultimate test of musical coordination: band camp.
It's a yearly rite of passage for any high school marching band, but this year, things are a bit different for the award-winning group.
Joe Moore, who replaced long-time director Bob Priest just last year, opted to send his soldiers to a new basic-training location. Many bands in the area, including Cougar bands of years past, headed southeast to Ferrum College. This year, the Cougars traveled west for the weeklong rigor.
"It's been wonderful," says chaperone Betty Nester, whose daughter Christie plays in the percussion pit. "We've had the whole place to ourselves and they've really catered to us."
Mother Nature has pitched in, too. Last summer, kids were passing out from the heat. This time, it's been bearable, with an occasional thunderstorm to cool things down.
But it's still late summer in Southwest Virginia, and by 11 a.m. the band has already taken four rest breaks.
"You can't put your arms down without them sticking," complains Justin Barnes, a saxophone player and a junior at Pulaski.
All morning, the band has held their arms up, pretending to hold their respective instruments, marching backward and sideways and every-which-way across the practice football field. Marchers look to each other for guidance as Drum Major Tom Westmoreland hums the music to the "Wizard of Oz" score, which the band will be performing - eventually.
On the sidelines, the pit - made up of eight students who play the gong, several xylophones and anything else that can't be carried - clangs and bangs
through its rhythms.
"Quiet!" the marchers scream, then when the clamor stops, a lone "Thank you!"
Just before lunch, Moore belts out a command and the entire clutter of teens snap their bodies to attention. It's a move seen throughout the day, when the commotion crescendos to the hair-pulling limit.
Rarely does a band member fail to respond.
Discipline is a word repeated often by students when they talk about their band experience. Family is the other.
"It's teaching you stuff about life, like working with people and patience, lots of patience," says Michelle Cook, a saxophone player and senior.
Like a football team or a chess club, band kids are their own clique, their own identity. They said some kids think they're nerdy, others admire their close-knit friendships. The community doles out the most praise, they said, especially when they march through Dublin and Pulaski in the Christmas parades.
They bond with each other from these first exhausting days, and like any family, there are mishaps.
"Earlier this week, I was turning my flag around and, I didn't mean to at all, but I hit somebody with it and chipped their tooth," confesses Arti Sullivan, a freshman in the color guard.
Sullivan said the marcher forgave her, but some musicians complain that the flag wavers and dancers get in the way. Moore said he's trying to build up the color guard, and this year has a whopping 24 who move through the flowing lines of the band.
After a lunch of hot dogs and curly fries, band members retreat to their dorm rooms for a required nap. Some collapse in front of fans wisely brought from home, others whisper to their roommates.
The boys cover the first floor; the girls invade the second and third floors. At night, chaperones sit at either end of the hall, just in case.
"Every parent with a child in band should experience this," says Marianna Wiley, a three-year veteran and mom of Miranda.
Parents have been a key asset in this massive coordination effort. Aside from chaperoning, transporting and, well, listening to their budding musicians, some parents sewed the multitude of flags and costumes the color guard will wear during their performances.
After the post-lunch break, the band separates and scatters across campus, led by music students from universities across the state. The older students help the young musicians perfect their technique and make sure the music is memorized.
On the afternoon breezes float the melodies of the "Wizard of Oz."
"Over the Rainbow," grunted out by a line of six sousaphone (something akin to a tuba) players, rolls down the hill. From the shade of a brick porch, flutes and piccolos chirp out "Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead."
Under another porch four mellophone (similar to a French-horn) players repeat the same section of "Follow the Yellow Brick Road" again and again.
"Are we sick of the 'Wizard of Oz?'" says Jennifer Sharp, a junior. "Well, let's see, this spring, the drama department did it; we did it in symphonic band, and the chorus sang some of it, too."
Still, Moore is hoping competition judges will find the performance unique, especially because he created the score. The choreography was designed by a friend; Moore went ahead and designed music to match.
The Cougars usually compete against the largest bands in the state. They've been rated as a Virginia Honor Band, which means they've received superior ratings for both the marching and the concert bands.
Moore, who directed band for six years at a high school in Tennessee before coming to Pulaski, said his primary goal is not winning competitions, but providing an entertaining show for the football fans.
With about half the band new to their instruments or to marching with them, Moore says he's amazed how quickly the show has come together.
The final test comes at 7 p.m., when it's time to perform the entire show, this time on the playing field across the street. After four days of practice, this will be the last time to see it all together before the Cougars head for home tomorrow.
Dorothy and a cast of "Oz" characters - actors from the color guard - dramatize the music as the band ebbs and flows across the field. Everyone stays together, for the most part, and the chaperone audience cheers at the impressive attempt.
And the grand finale ... well, that's a secret. Suffice it to say the color seen by movie viewers, as Dorothy steps out into the Technicolor wonder of Oz, will pale in comparison.
"The neat thing about this," says Moore, as he gazes over his harmonious team, "is that everyone's a starter. Everyone is in the spotlight getting their chance to shine.
"You sweat together, you get rained on together ... . It's a family out here."
LENGTH: Long : 143 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: LORA GORDON. 1. Samantha Corder concentrates on theby CNBmusic as she practices her part with other mellophone players during
a band camp at Emory and Henry College (ran on NRV-1). 2. A less
than thrilled Danielle Glass stands listening to a critique of the
morning rehearsal and instructions for what the rest of day will
hold for her and the others in the Pulaski County High School band.
3. Andy Pratt (above left) works to master a newly written section
of music with the assistance of percussion instructor Brian Joyce.
4. Using a windowsill as a music stand, Eric Hubble (above)
practices his musical part with the other alto saxophone players
during an afternoon sectional rehearsal in front of Emory & Henry's
Carriger Hall. 5. Kristel Rupe yells "hello" as her cousin, Kerry
Rupe, talks to her boyfriend during a lunch break at band camp (left
photo). color. 6. Dorothy, played by Heather Easterling, races amid
the band as they all rehearse a "Wizard of Oz" half-time show
during band camp recently.