Oct 15, 2019 3 min read

Fall is one of my favorite times of the year and not just because of the warm, mainly dry weather, lower humidity and colorful foliage.

Fall is also football season and, to me, that also means marching band season. I’m a true band nerd dating back to my middle school days when I began learning to play the oboe in the concert band. By high school, I decided that the kids in the marching band looked like they were having tons of fun, and they also got to go on a great trip to somewhere like Disney World every couple of years. Since I had taken a few years of piano lessons, I was a perfect fit for the bells and xylophone in the percussion section. I always thought the drummers were the coolest band members, and I’ve always had really good rhythm, so this was awesome.

We played at football games, band festivals and competitions, marched in parades, spent a week at band camp and generally had a ball. We also raised enough money to take trips to the World’s Fair in Tennessee and a band competition in Orlando with a side performance at Epcot.

Four years passed by in a blink, and when I had the chance to audition for the West Virginia University Marching Band, I was extremely nervous but played well enough to get accepted. I moved over from bells to cymbals and was part of a 50-member drumline in a band marching more than 300 students. I’ll never forget that first performance at Mountaineer Field in front of tens of thousands of fans and the adrenaline rush we felt every time we performed.

Decades later, I still go to WVU games and love to watch the band. My favorite day of the season is homecoming, when I gather with hundreds of other aging band nerds to relive our glory days for a few minutes on the field by marching the pregame show. It’s a joy to lead off the homecoming parade the night before and to visit with old friends from my college days and other alumni band members from all decades who have become new friends.

This year was extra special as it marked the WVU Alumni Band’s 50th year. Organizers worked hard to plan out a special pregame show featuring some 300 alumni plus the nearly 400-member student band all on the field at once. What a thrill! The old-timers still have it, and the young kids were on point as we joined together to play the fight song, the national anthem and Country Roads. Many alumni band members joked the next day about sore muscles and aches and pains, but we’ll all be there again next year for the chance to revisit our youth … even if it’s only for about a five-minute show.

Kristin Emery can be reached at kristinemery1@yahoo.com.