BROWNSTOWN

As they looked around, they didn’t see familiar faces in the crowd.

All they saw were thousands of people lining the street and the popular attractions they had only heard about but not seen in person.

[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]

Click here to purchase photos from this gallery

They had an opportunity to march in a parade with other bands and groups from different states, visit all of the attractions and meet people from all around the world.

This year’s trip to Disney World in Orlando, Florida, is one that members of the Brownstown Central High School Band of Braves and drill team and their chaperones will remember for quite awhile.

The opportunity only comes around every four years.

“For me, it was a place to perform in front of lots of different people,” senior Richard Ruddick said. “I’ve done musicals here at Brownstown for two years now and marching band all four. Just to go somewhere like Disney and march on their streets in Magic Kingdom was definitely worthwhile. It definitely gives me pride in our band just to show up and show everyone who we are and what we do.”

On the second day of the trip, the band and drill team marched in the parade along Main Street in Magic Kingdom. There are two of those parades each day, consisting of four marching bands spread out in the lineup.

The Band of Braves was the smallest in its parade. The band had 30 of its members go on the trip.

“You felt a sense of pride marching at Disney and having that story to tell people,” senior Noah Sarver said. “Even if our band is relatively small, it works out. At Disney, you kind of have the shared experience with all of the other bands.”

The band played four songs, “September,” “Party in the U.S.A.,” “Sunshine of Your Love” and “Hogan’s Heroes.”

“I let them pick some things that we had performed this year that would fit in that march style,” Director Richard Branaman said.

“Our March Madness concert, the ‘Hogan’s Heroes’ that they picked, that was one of the pieces that we played, and the kids said, ‘You know what? We like this. Would this work for a parade?’ ‘Yeah, it’s a little slow, but we could make it work,’” he said. “We’re not just playing pop and rock songs. We played a little bit of a variety. Our tour guide that traveled with us, she’s like, ‘I really like the selections that your kids played.’”

Junior drum major Emma Hamm said one moment stood out while marching.

“One thing I distinctly remember is looking to my right and seeing a girl dressed up as Ariel jumping up and down, clapping her hands with a big smile on her face, shaking her mom’s arm like, ‘Mom, mom, mom, look,’” she said.

It was great to share the experience of marching at Disney with the other band members, Hamm said.

“It’s definitely the biggest thing I’ve done as a drum major so far, and it was really new looking out and not seeing people that I knew, seeing new people and as you’re marching seeing different reactions out of people of different songs being played,” she said.

Senior drum major Alex Caffee liked the parade, too.

“I enjoyed watching the other bands warm up. It was fun. It was different,” she said. “It was really memorable to be part of the entertainment for the day.”

Classmate Derrick Prewitt also liked listening to the other bands in the parade after the Band of Braves finished their marching.

“I did enjoy seeing the other bands, the huge ones and listening to them and their different setups because we’re relatively small and we have different setups and marching lineups than they do,” he said. “It’s just neat seeing all of the new people and whatnot.”

Senior Robbie Branaman was one of the few band members who had been to Disney World before. He had gone on other band trips with his father.

“It wasn’t as many people as normal because we used to go in the summer,” he said of the band being there during spring break. “It used to be, you couldn’t see past the streets because there were so many people. This time, it was a little less, but it’s also good to play in front of new people and people you will never see again.”

Outside of marching in the parade, the band and drill team had the chance to take in many sights at Disney World.

On the first day, they had breakfast at Rainforest Cafe at Animal Kingdom and closed the day with a show at Epcot.

“I’ve seen it several times, and they have started to kind of alter it and change it, so I know what to expect, but there’s something new in it, so it’s cool,” Richard Branaman said of the show.

The second night, they saw a show at Magic Kingdom that consisted of music, fireworks and laser-generated animations on Cinderella Castle.

“Four years ago was the first time that we actually stayed and saw that show, and I thought that show was cool then,” Richard Branaman said. “Well, they completely revamped it, and it is phenomenal. That was just so awesome, and the kids and the people that we talked to were just really impressed with that show.”

For senior Matthew Manifold, the show brought mixed emotions.

“It was a fun experience, a unique one,” he said. “Derrick and I, it really set into us because we both got our hearts broken. I got out of a long relationship, he got out of a short one. It was still a beautiful experience.”

The third day started at Cocoa Beach, which for some members was the first time seeing the ocean. That night, they watched a Fantasmic! show at Hollywood Studios, but it was misty and very windy.

“They use water and they spray fountains of water, and they project lasers onto the water,” Richard Branaman said. “It was blowing so hard that part of the mist was decaying before the laser could actually project on all of it. The show was still fantastic, but the kids who had never seen it before don’t get the complete effect from it because the weather interfered with it.”

On the final day of the trip, the band visited Universal Studios and saw a show by Blue Man Group.

“That was our closing hurrah for the trip, and that is hysterical,” Richard Branaman said. “They have things where they pull guests out of the crowd. They spray this fluorescent paint and use black lights onto the drums that they play so it splatters and makes all of this cool stuff.”

Robbie said he liked Universal Studios the most.

“I always remember Universal because I love Harry Potter,” he said. “I’m a Harry Potter geek, so every time I step in there, it’s fantastic.”

Caffee said she liked visiting a comic book store, while Sarver said he liked all three of the shows they saw.

It cost about $1,000 per student to go on the trip. Fortunately, the fundraising they had done helped cover the cost of transportation.

“The band boosters try to cover the cost of the bus. That’s a big deal,” Richard Branaman said. “This year, the band boosters saved each kid over $300 apiece by covering the cost of the transportation.”

He is proud of the way the group represented the school and community at a place that draws people from around the world.

“It’s just amazing the things that you do and the people you talk to, ‘Oh, we saw your band.’ It was cool that they recognized some of us,” he said. “Some of them that we saw on Monday and Tuesday before our performance said they were going to try to catch our show, and then I saw some of them later, and they were very complimentary of the group. It’s very rewarding.”