Band request hits sour note with school board

Editor's note: This story has been updated since its first posting.

PALMER — The Colony High School marching band is making small gains in fundraising ahead of its scheduled Jan. 20 appearance in the Inaugural Parade in Washington, D.C.

But the group is still between $6,000 and $10,000 short, director Jamin Burton said Wednesday.

The band needs $58,000 to afford a trip that will take it from Anchorage to Newark, N.J., by plane, then to just outside Washington, D.C., by bus.

As of Wednesday afternoon, the band had $36,000 in hand and about $15,000 pledged, but not yet paid, from donors, Burton said. He added if the band doesn’t have at least $55,000 by Jan. 10, its dream of playing in the Inaugural Parade will be dashed.

“If I don’t have the money by the 10th, it’s a no go,” Burton said.

The Colony marching band has been working to raise enough money to go to the nation’s capital after being invited last month to play during President-elect Barack Obama’s inauguration.

But efforts to raise enough money in the short time available have been a nail-bitter for band members and parents.

Couple that with fluctuating travel and lodging rates in Washington and the stress of organizing an entire band to march amid a projected millions of onlookers, and Burton and other officials have been under the gun.

On Monday, the band was dealt a roadblock that appeared to take a hit at some students’ morale.

Burton said Wednesday he was relying on a hoped-for pledge of at least $15,000 from the Mat-Su Borough School Board to help with the cost of the trip. That money won’t be a factor, however, after the board turned down the band’s request for funding help Monday. The board voted 3-3 in a special meeting called by board President Jim Colver, which, being a tie, effectively becomes a failed vote.

Colver and members Myrl Thompson and 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 money to the marching band it would open the spigot on a flood of other requests from school groups looking for a handout.

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 before the meeting 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 marching band is the only high school marching band in the state and was invited to play in the Inaugural Parade over scores of other bands that applied.

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

But it was a statement from Pougher that seemed to sum up at least one notion all board members were in agreement with.

Pougher said student activities in the school district are “grossly under-funded,” a point that arose from the debate on whether to help the marching band.

That didn’t help the band’s case, and after the proposal failed, parents and students filed out of the room noticeably saddened by the decision.

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 the efforts to get to the nation’s seat of government.

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.”

After the meeting, surrounded by a cadre of parents offering help and advice, Burton said fundraising efforts will continue until the day the band leaves.

In an interview Wednesday, Burton said many band parents have rallied around the cause of fundraising, and he thanked the community for all it has done.

“Most of the community we talk to have been really positive and helpful,” Burton said. “We made up a lot of ground yesterday (Tuesday).”

The band had made some concessions to cut costs, including cutting out all hotel stays and driving all night from Newark to Fairfax, Virginia, where a church has agreed to let the students stay free of charge.

The band is also receiving some help from Alaska Airlines, which waived its second bag luggage fee for the students.

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, where an account has been set up. There is also a Web site, www.chsmusicboosters.com., that will accept online donations.

Burton said with the population of the Valley, if every family donated $1, it would likely put the Colony band on the road to Washington.