No funding from school board for marching band

PALMER -- The Colony High School marching band will have to continue raising funds for a trip to Washington, D.C., without monetary help from the Mat-Su Borough School Board.

The board voted 3-3 Monday on a decision of whether to give the band $15,000 to help cover expenses for a trip to play in the Jan. 20 Inaugural Parade.

The tie vote effectively becomes a failed vote.

Board President Jim Colver, member Myrl Thompson and member Ole Larson voted in favor of giving the band the money.

Board members Colleen Hamblen, Susan Pougher and Sarah Welton voted against the proposal.

Brian Sullivan, a newly elected board member, was absent from the meeting.

In front of a packed conference room at the district’s administration office in Palmer, board members discussed the pros and cons of doling out cash for the band’s trip.

The sticking point appeared to be a concern among some board members that if they gave $15,000 to the marching band it would open the spigot on a flood of other requests from school groups looking for a handout.

Marching band director Jamin Burton said he disagrees.

“How many other groups will be invited by the President-elect to play?” Burton asked after the vote failed.

That notion seemed to be one reason the board members in support of the funding found it to be a good idea.

“I think it’s the right thing to do,” Colver said of the funding. “It’s history in the making.”

Still, Welton, who said she received a threatening letter attempting to influence her decision, said setting a precedent where the board acts like a bank is bad.

“We cannot be the cash cow,” Welton said.

Hamblen said her concern Monday was the seemingly hasty way the trip has been thrown together, though she acknowledged the band had a small window to prepare.

The Colony High School marching band is the only marching band in the state, and was invited to play in the inaugural parade over scores of other bands that applied to do so.

She also said helping with funding seemed to only benefit a small group of students, and questioned how it benefited the district as a whole.

Gayle Hoyt, a senior who’s played in the band since his freshman year, said the decision by the board was disappointing, but not the end all to their efforts to get to the nation’s capital.

Colver said he agrees.

“This wasn’t the death nail in the trip,” he said. “It was just a way to make it easier on them.”

As band members and parents filed out of the meeting room Monday, Burton said fundraising efforts will continue until the day the band leaves.

He’s already confirmed the band will march Jan. 20, Burton said.

The band is receiving some help from Alaska Airlines, which waived its second bag luggage fee for the students. A church in Fairfax, Va., has agreed to lodge the band.

Burton said anyone who wants to donate money to help the band get to Washington, D.C., can still do so at any Wells Fargo Bank.There is also a Web site, www.chsmusicboosters.com., that will accept online donations.

So far, a gauge on the Web site shows 12 percent of the $45,000 the band still needs to get to the Inaugural Parade.

Contact Michael Rovito at michael.rovito@frontiersman.com or 352-2252.