A Huge Success By: Anna Kate Terry Marching band is a club with a lot of intricate moving parts, and the key to keeping these moving parts working like a well-oiled machine is having the right people around to keep it that way. That’s why on the 29th and 30th of January, students in our marching band got to bring their knowledge and experience into the lives of the kids at North Middle School and Lenoir City Intermediate in an attempt to bring them into the LCHS Marching Band as they come. Emma Hill (9), who plays a bunch of different instruments, but mainly the tuba, appreciated the opportunity to bring in new musicians after the seniors graduated. She thinks that all the new faces will be a prime time for new talent. “We played a bunch of stand tunes, and we tried to get a bunch of 7th and 8th graders to join the marching band next year. Honestly, I feel really happy. I think having other kids join the band after all our seniors and juniors are going to leave is honestly going to be so fun. I’m excited to have new faces here,” Hill said. The band was overjoyed to be able to bring music into the lives of the kids they met. Emma Cousins (10), who participates in color guard but also plays saxophone during concert season, wanted to give the middle schoolers an opportunity that she didn’t have. “I love music, and I loved it when I was younger, so I'm really passionate about marching and color guard. It's really good to know that they're finding out about marching band so that they can get in on it sooner rather than later, and because I wish I could have done it sooner. It's really fun, and I hope that they want to do it because we would love to have them here,” Cousins said. The band got to go back to where they’d learned about music and do what was done to them throughout the years. Because the field trip was to both schools, the band was able to become the influencers who had changed some of their lives through instruments and dance. Spencer Smith (9), who plays trumpet and baritone tuba, admitted, along with several others, that NMS was his favorite school to visit. “I liked being able to go to North Middle because that's where I went to middle school, and there were a couple of kids that I already knew, or got to know better,” Smith said. Jack Fitzgerald, a junior who plays percussion, specifically bass drum, described how being able to go to these schools got him excited about welcoming new members into the band community, and how he enjoyed the impact he was given the opportunity to make. “I went to North Middle School, and knowing some of the eighth graders made it feel like it's really a positive thing. Recruiting and getting people excited about the band in high school made me feel really good, and it was cool to teach the younger students to get excited about music,” Fitzgerald said. This field trip is a good way to get the band out into the worlds of some kids who never would’ve thought to join the band otherwise. With good reports from the marching band, it would seem this field trip was a huge success in every way.