Bands Get Their Day in the Sun

The moment Larry Patzer heard that the school band from his boyhood home in Canada would march in this year’s Tournament of Roses parade, he telephoned his alma mater to offer help. When he was told the band needed cash for its 36-hour bus ride to Pasadena, Patzer sent a check for $10,000.

For the retired lawyer who now lives on a hill above the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, it was a chance to help the hometown teenagers reach “the end of the rainbow.”

The Rose Parade is a rare chance for those who don’t live in the capital of movies and television to grab the world’s attention. The parade gives kids from places like Yorkton, Saskatchewan, and Derby, Kan., a chance to travel and to be seen by 400 million television viewers worldwide.

About 2,000 high school students from across the continent and beyond, including a group from Chiang Mai, Thailand, will march in the parade Thursday.

Those who make the cut--only 15 high schools were chosen from 115 that applied--often are showered with attention, becoming the pride of their town, their state, and, in some cases, their nation.

“Someone said that for the band it’s like being an athlete in the Olympics,” said Lauren Steele, 14, a drummer in the Yorkton Regional High School band from Saskatchewan. Indeed, the band’s trip to Pasadena is important enough that a local television news reporter followed them here to cover their adventure for hometown viewers.

The American Fork High School band was sent off from Utah by state legislators and local politicians, and the son of Larry Miller, owner of the Utah Jazz basketball team, spoke to them about his experience marching in the Rose Parade with his college band. As their buses pulled out of American Fork, fire engines and police cars led them through town and residents cheered.

But before planes can take off or buses can roll, students must find ways to come up with the thousands of dollars needed to fund a trip. The road to Pasadena is paved not only with hours of band practice, but also with years of baking cookies, washing cars and flipping hamburgers.

To pay for a trip as costly as the one to the Rose Parade, schools often have to devise more sophisticated fund-raisers. The American Fork high school boosters set up a phone line that billed callers $5 to support the band. They also organized a 5-K run and sent a direct-mail request for donations to 5,000 Utah households, from which they received 7,000 checks.

The Sumner High School band from Sumner, Wash., sold fanciful “stock certificates.” Two thousand shares were bought by townsfolk at $1 a piece.

In Grenada, Miss., parents raised enough money selling hamburgers, funnel cakes and sodas at high school football games to buy an 18-wheel truck to haul the band’s equipment. Two fathers took turns driving the rig to California.

The payoff for such extraordinary efforts is a chance not only to play before an international audience, but also to show off some of the unique attributes of one’s home region.

The American Fork band, for instance, will play mid-19th century tunes to honor the pioneers who rode into Utah 150 years ago.

For some, the parade presents a chance to dispel commonly held stereotypes of their homes. Gail Daigneault, whose husband directs the Grenada band, said the fact that the band is racially integrated, like the town’s high school, presents a positive view of the South.

An eloquent woman given to citing Faulkner, she joked that the band’s appearance will show that “We do own shoes here. Some of us even have more than one pair.”

Reactions to the Los Angeles climate also reflect the starkly different lives of Americans from different regions.

Linsey Collier, a senior trumpet player in Sumner High’s band, said the trip is an escape from Washington state winters. “No more gloves, no earmuffs, and no more marching on the frozen grass, or on ice,” she said.

Times staff writer Brett Johnson contributed to this report.