By Alex Johnson
The Community Stage
If you haven’t caught on yet, I’m a band nerd. I play a pretty niche instrument, so when marching band season came around every year in high school, I had what we might call mixed feelings. But there’s nothing like 10 days in 100+ degree heat on a football field to truly bond a bunch of teenagers. Marching band was a club all its own with a sense of camaraderie you rarely find elsewhere.
And we all get to experience a little bit of that spirit when the Drum Corps International groups come to Hutchinson, thanks to our resident drum corps: the Sky Ryders. Since their fundraising campaign began in 2023, the recently revived Sky Ryders Drum Corps has brought fellow drum corps to the Gowans Stadium for an exhibition show during their summer season.
If you have been hearing more marching bands than normal around town these past two weeks, that’s why. I hope you were able to experience the showcase on Tuesday, but if you missed it, make sure to put it on your calendar for next year. This is a unique opportunity for our little community to see not just one but several drum corps preparing for competitions around the country.
To those who say, “marching band, who cares,” I counter that if you haven’t seen a drum corps with massive props on wheels, trombonists nailing choreography, and the drum line going full tilt across the field carrying instruments bigger than they are, you haven’t seen anything yet. The adrenaline and passion these teens-to-twentysomethings bring to the field are palpable and contagious.
As a bassoonist, I wouldn’t say I’m a marching band native. I went into my freshman year of high school feeling a little extra fish-out-of-water since I was memorizing the marching band show that summer on an instrument I’d only been playing for five months (the flute).
But the marching band was a great way to start the high school experience. Band camp starts before the school year, so you go into the first day of classes already knowing many of the upperclassmen, who are far less intimidating after watching them sweat on the field alongside you.
For the last two years of my high school experience, I was a drum major. It was a crash course in politics and group dynamics. For example, a certain section of the band decided that their holiday weekend fun would include vandalizing my house/car with a new form of vandalism each time. Did I mention the mixed feelings about marching band? But being a drum major also taught me valuable lessons in leadership: someone is always watching, and every little action, choice, and vulnerability has far-reaching consequences. And confidence is 70% faking it, 20% courage, and 10% hoping you’re not found out.
Before being thrown into the deep end of student leadership, drum majors at my high school were sent to the George N. Parks Drum Major Academy, where we learned from other students in similar situations and got to test out our leadership approaches before coming back to our own communities. Looking back on these camps as an adult, I do appreciate the opportunity to be surrounded by band kids who cared just as much as we did. This is the kind of passion that you can find in some of these drum corps.
The dedication of these drum corps kids is intense. They audition well in advance for a spot in these groups and devote their summer to the drum corps: rehearsals during the height of summer outdoors on turf football fields, long bus trips, and memorizing hours’ worth of music and choreography.
The Sky Ryders are sharing the drum corps culture and art form with our community, which rarely sees something quite on this scale. These drum corps have just that little something extra that all the band nerds out there, of all ages, can admire and aspire to.
So mark your calendars for next year, and as I’ve been telling everyone—make sure to bring your earplugs. They really bring the sound.
Alex is the founder of Classical Revolution ICT. She can be reached at alex@classicalrevolutionict.com.