Who steals from a high school marching band? Especially items that are specific to the show?
(I really don’t think this was any competitor — of which +Kay Hill‘s high school band is one. I would be appalled to discover that’s the case, as it goes against every ethic in the marching band community.)
I have no doubt that if the Legend HS folk reach out for help to other schools, they will get any assistance that can be provided. That is how the community rolls. Everyone wants to win, sure, but winning is secondary to what the kids get out of the experience.
State finals are next weekend. Even though they are our competitors, I hope they are able to replace what they need in that time. Nobody wants — or should want — to win based on that sort of event.
[h/t +Stan Pedzick]
Thieves steal Legend High School marching band’s equipment week before championship
Police in Parker are looking for the thieves who stole equipment crucial to the Legend High School marching band whose members are preparing for the upcoming state championship.
Having attended high school marching band competitions for the last six years (for smaller, Class 3 schools), it's been rather startling to see the scale of elaborate props and technologies being allowed in marching band competition field shows. It's like they're all shooting for a Superbowl half-time show audition rather than a high school marching band competition performance. When the props take over the performance, it's not about high school level musicianship and teamwork anymore.
It's also shockingly disappointing how few high school marching bands are actually playing real marches in competition (or at all).
That being said, and before it sounds like I'm victim-blaming, it's plain awful that anyone would steal from a school and the kids who have put a lot of effort into their competitive performance. Of course, way way back in my day, the only thing a high school band had that was worth stealing was maybe the instruments, and most kids guarded them with their lives.
But then, way way back in my day, the matching band "front line" wasn't stationary percussionists parked behind multiple marimbas, chimes and four tympanis, either.
My youngest niece is a senior this year, so my Midwestern marching band competition days are done. With a lot of hard work, determination and decent direction (and material), both nieces got to perform at district and state level competitions. The most elaborate their field performance props ever got was last year's mock-Arlington cemetery that went up for the fourth of five songs (it took six or more of us adult boosters to set up the wooden frames and crosses) and nobody was looking to steal those.
I will add that one of the great unforeseen advantages of not having kids is never having much reason to deal with other kids' parents.
+Chris Kim A Some schools do seem to do a lot of elaborate prop work; it's not clear to me how that pays off in the judging, to be honest. For that matter, I wasn't that impressed by how the props were used in Legend's show, though that does evolve over the course of the season for most bands and I may not have seen the final product.
While my daughter's band marches with props (my wife and I have been pushing props for the past few years), we haven't done any of the "Super Bowl show" levels of tech — mostly panels in front, out on the field, and some other simple items. We've seen some bands doing that. On the other hand, one of our closest rivals is currently marching this year with practically no props at all.
The theft of the props is really puzzling; I have to wonder if they were seen as technical gizmos for later examination and potential sale. The generators and extension cords make more sense here. (I understand that the same thieves broke into a similar field locker for the football team and stole some stuff from there, too.)
+Dave Hill thank you for your tolerance of my near-tangental rant. I didn't realize until after I'd hit "Post" that it was so long, but it was sincere, so I left it. It dawned on me later that I have a very narrow field of opportunity to express my high school marching band competition observations, thoughts and opinions outside my shrinking family.
But more to the point of your post, I'd be relieved (sort of) to hear that it was a general burglary and not a targeted one by a competing high school. Although I've met a lot of band parents, and some of them rival sports parents when it comes to how far they'll go to be band boosters.
I would soundly thump someone about the head and shoulders from our school band parents if I discovered they were behind those shenanigans. And then I would drop a dime on them.
Every band parent I talked to this weekend was appalled that this had happened. While there are occasional bad apples, the supportiveness of the band community to one another is actually pretty inspirational.
As a side note, if anyone cares to donate to the band to help them replace the stolen equipment, they have a PayPal link on their web page: http://legendtitanband.com/