A trip that had an original destination of Chicago, IL now has the Trenton High School Golden Bulldog Marching Band and Colorguard spending their Thanksgiving break in Houston, TX.
The group will be participating in the H-E-B Thanksgiving Day Parade and will be one of several high school and college bands featured in the 67th annual event. Olympic gold medalist gymnast Simone Biles will be one of the grand marshals for the parade, which gets under way at 9 a.m. and covers a route of approximately one mile.
While THS Band Director Tim Gilham had been thinking about a trip for the band for some time, actual planning did not start until March. At that time, Gilham had been working with a company that specializes in student travel and was planning for the Chicago destination. But when it got down to actual costs, Gilham said he backed away and began looking at alternative trips the band could make at a little cheaper rate.
“We were looking at something in which each student was going to have to come up with about $650 and I just didn’t feel comfortable with asking parents to do that,” he said. “So I just started ‘googling’ Thanksgiving parades and listed at third on the list was Houston.”
As he began exploring that option, he found out the costs would be much cheaper, especially with the fact that he was doing much of the planning himself and not having a company do the work.
“That did make a difference,” Gilham said. “We’ve been able to save quite a bit of money making our own arrangements. Plus there was no entry fee and warm weather – how could you beat that?”
There was still about $40,000 to be raised to get the band to their destination and the Band Boosters took the lead in organizing fundraisers to help the band reach its goal.
“One of the things we tried to do was that each fundraiser we did had some kind of community service aspect to it,” he said. “We expected all the kids to take part in as many as they could.”
And the community responded. Car washes, breakfasts, potato bars and a spaghetti dinner helped raise the majority of the money, with the band reaching its goal, thanks to a donation received from the recent Festival of Trees.
“The community has been so, so supportive,” Gilham said. “People have had their cars washed I don’t know how many times and have eaten lots of food that we’ve sold.”
Gilham said he heard more than one time from people who said “every kid should get to go,” adding it hasn’t been unusual for people who couldn’t attend fundraisers to just send or bring in money the help pay for the trip.
“Every day it seems like we’ve gotten a check in the mail, wanting to help,” he said. “It shows that they care about the kids.”
And those “kids” have been working hard to make the community proud, spending every classroom hour outside, working on their marching and playing skills in preparation for the parade. The band has changed the music it has been playing this year for parade competitions, playing music from “Star Wars” at the request of parade organizers.
“We’re guessing that entries around us have some sort of ‘Star Wars’ theme,” Gilham said.
Trenton will be entry number 31A, which will be near the middle of the parade lineup. The parade will be broadcast on Houston’s CBS affiliate station, KHOU Channel 11, beginning at 9 a.m., and will also be rebroadcast later in the day. Gilham said that as far as he knows, there are no plans to broadcast the parade in this area.
The band – including 72 students and 12 chaperones – will be leaving Trenton at 3 a.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 23, arriving in Houston later that evening. There will be no rest for the students, who will immediately be transported to the “practice area” for a “run-through” to determine timing for the broadcast. After what most likely will be a quick night’s sleep, the band will be back at the parade site at 7:30 a.m. in preparation for the 9 a.m. event.
Once the parade is over, the students will return to the hotel and get ready for an afternoon on the beaches of Galveston. That evening, parents who are driving down to the parade will join the students and chaperones for a Thanksgiving dinner at the hotel.
Friday will be spent at the NASA Space Center as well as the Kemah Boardwalk, which Gilham said has a lot for the students to do. Friday evening will be dinner and swimming in the hotel’s heated pool, before heading to bed and getting up early the next morning (Saturday) to make the trip home.
“It’s going to be a busy time for the kids, but they are just so excited to go,” Gilham said.
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