Kennywood with the Marching Band

The Drumline, warming up in the "service area" behind the rides. This use to be where they parked the buses, but this year only the equipment buses/vans were permitted to park back in this area. I talked my way in to get a couple of pictures. Actually it wasn't hard...I had water bottles and drum keys for the drummers and the gate guard left me right through. Let's see...left to right, Billy, Mary, Danielle (her dad drove the equipment van, we dubbed him the official "Drum Driver"), Camryn (AKA Cymbal Boy), Terry, Jimmy, Josh (he's always at our house...he lives about 2/3 of a mile from our house and he and Billy do almost everything together), and Andy.


Mary and Billy (and the part of the drumline) playing their cadence while getting in the line-up for the parade. This band has had so many directors that they tend to do their own thing...7 in the six years Billy's been marching. Billy and Mary are seniors and sorta rule the roost. The drum major is also a senior and the best trumpet player we have...all three are going to be missed when they graduate next summer. We had a trio of drummers that were inseperatable...Brandi graduated this year and was really missed on this trip. She would have been right there beside Billy and Mary.


You already have seen the 8 drummers...well, here's the rest of the band...the instruments are on the left. Go ahead and count them...four instruments (two trumpets, a flute and a clarinet). We have 47 band members (including color guard) but only 21 went on this trip; 8 drummers, 4 instrumentalists, 1 drum major and 8 color guard). Every single drummer and color guard went and only these four dedicated instrumentalists! Let's see...in this photo, up the line of instruments, Shelby, Greg, Denise and Lacey. You can see some of the color guard in the background. The little boy wandering around in the center, he's the fill-in band director's son, Ethan. And, let me say, he is the best behaved 6-year-old I've ever seen! His dad, is behind him, at the end of the instrument line.


Me 'n Kim; the chapperones. I'm on the left...just in case you didn't know! ;) We were going to wear the polo shirts that the band is wearing for the parade...but we thought the lime green would stick out better and the kids would be able to find us easier if they needed anything during the day. My head was really getting sun burnt...so I bought myself this spiffy hat! Whadda ya think; cool, hun? Kim was also my riding partner! We started out slow and rode the train...several of the kids picked on us for being *old* and riding the *lame* train ride...sooooo we decided to ride the Whip (my favorite old-time ride). Then we got very daring and rode The Exterminator (an indoor roller coaster that is a high speed beefed up cross between the Wild Mouse and the Tilt-a-Whirl)...this is by far, the best ride there...if you like to be spun around and end up so dizzy you can't walk. We staggered around for 20 minutes before we both regained our equilibrium! We also rode the Gold Rush (that's a mining themed haunted house ride. The bat cave in that ride was creepy. You enter this tunnel with black lights and they have hundreds of rubber bats hanging from the ceiling...as you go into the tunnel, it gets dark...and the bats are hanging low enough they are hitting you! CREEPY! We were laughing so hard when we came out that we could hardly breathe!


A shot from the rear of the band, during the parade. Kim and I were hornswaggled into marching with them to pick up drum sticks. So, this is what they get for begging us to march the parade route with them! BTW, that's Billy, in the center. And the fill-in band director (ours quit two weeks ago) is the elementary choir teacher, Mr. Phipps...he's to the top left dressed in all in tan, carrying his 6 year old on his shoulders. AND...you'll notice that they are all in step this time! Billy's been working on that with them. Oh, and Mr Phipps taught me to march during the parade. I'm telling you...how I gave birth to a drummer is anyone's guess. I'm the most *not* musically inclined person on earth!

And...that brings us to the end of our 2007 Kennywood WTAE Band-Days!