Punahou students find inspiration in the president-elect's life

By Robert Shikina


POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Jan 04, 2009

Students at Punahou School inspired by alumnus and President-elect Barack Obama's success hope to show their appreciation with a song.

 Punahou Band Prepares For Inauguration

 
Students of the Punahou Band have been preparing for President Barack Obama’s inauguration ceremony.


"We want to do him proud," said Calla Chang, a sophomore with the Punahou School marching band.
 

Chang, a drum major, will conduct the band as it performs in the Presidential Inaugural Parade Jan. 20 in Washington, D.C.

"Having a person like that who actually grew up in Hawaii and came from our school is quite an inspiration to us," Chang said. "You can be whatever you want to be and it doesn't matter what your background is as long as you have a lot of heart."

Obama is a 1979 graduate of Punahou.

Darin Au, Academy Music Department head, said the band will play "Aloha Oe" and two other songs in the parade.

"It's Hawaii's way of saying 'farewell to thee until we meet again, Mr. Obama,'" he said. "We're truly honored that he is entering this new phase in his life."

The band also will play "Men of Punahou" and Brahms' Symphony No. 1.

Most of Punahou's marching band - 133 members - along with 17 Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps members and six varsity cheerleaders from the school will march in the parade.

They will depart Jan. 15 and spend six days in Washington - where it was 38 degrees yesterday - taking tours of museums and monuments before Inauguration Day.

Senior Tyler Matayoshi said he expects the band to be under the spotlight in the ceremony.

"We're not only representing the school and the state, but to a certain extent, we're also representing Obama because he came from Punahou," he said.

Matayoshi, 18, a drum major, said he's looking forward to the sightseeing.

"It's just awesome," said Jessica Yoshimi, 18, a senior drum major who also was with the school band when it marched in the Tournament of Roses Parade in 2007.

"The veterans are all relieved that we don't have a 5-1/2-mile parade to march," she said, referring to the Rose Bowl parade. The inaugural parade is about 2 miles long.

"We're all a little nervous because it's the inaugural parade, the president-elect is from our state," she said. "It's a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing."

Dozens of band members were on the field yesterday working on "wheel turns" for the parade route. Most of Hawaii's parades are straight, so the band hasn't used the technique since the Rose Bowl parade in 2007, said Brent Nagamine, 17, a senior and trombone player.

Nagamine, the horn sergeant who wore a white cowboy hat, watched his band members run through the drill.

Students seemed to worry most about the cold.

"We're just talking to them about layering under their uniform," Au said. Some students bought plastic mouthpieces so their lips wouldn't stick to the brass ones in the cold, he said.

Punahou's marching band was selected to be in the parade out of nearly 1,400 applicants, Au said.

"This is definitely huge," he said. "It's on the national stage, maybe even international stage."

By LINDA SADLOUSKOS
Staff Writer

The Bonnie Brae Knights drum corps, made up of students from Bonnie Brae School in the Liberty Corner section of the township, will perform at president-elect Barack Obama's inauguration parade Jan. 20.

The selection of the Bonnie Brae Knights was announced Tuesday by U.S. Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg, D-NJ, who said he recently sent a letter of support for the drum line group to the Armed Forces Inaugural Committee in charge of selecting participating groups.

The drum corps was established four years ago, according to Lautenberg's office. The style of music for the drum line was initially modeled after a former member of the Bonnie Brae staff who was a drummer who played African beats. The Knights, with a dozen students ages 12 to 16, have performed in various settings, including at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia prior to a 76ers game.

Lautenberg's office said the inaugural committee had so far received 1,382 applications for parade participants and 49 groups from across the country had been chosen as of Tuesday.

Bonnie Brae is a private school for adolescent boys who have been neglected, abused or abandoned.

By Journal Times staff
Saturday, December 20, 2008 11:55 PM CST


George D. Fennell, a Racine native who retired after 30 years with the Racine County Sheriff’s Department, has published his book about the Racine American Legion 76 Drum and Bugle Corps.

Racine, the self-proclaimed “drum and bugle corps capital of the world,” is the focus of Fennell’s most recent book, “The Racine American Legion Post 76 Drum and Bugle Corps: A Scrapbook History: 1916 – 1946,” according to a publisher’s press release.

In September 1964, Fennell joined the Racine YMCA Kiltie Kadets Drum and Bugle Corps, which ignited a lifelong passion for the activity. Since then he has been a member of several of Racine’s drum and bugle corps.

Fennell, who now lives near Kansasville with his wife, Liz, also has lectured and written numerous newspaper and magazine articles about the history of the corps.

The paperback, which retails for $27.95, is available at retail Web sites like Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Out of Many, One: the American Destiny

The 2009 Empire Statesmen production, entitled Out of Many, One: the American Destinyexplores a wide variety of well known and appealing music which conveys the rich tapestry and mosaic of American spirit, identity and values.   
The production opens with the hauntingly familiar melody of Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man which was written in 1942 to honor the common men and women fighting valiantly for our nation’s freedom and liberty during World War II.

The opening production continues with Robert Jager’s Esprit de Corps to further evoke theopportunityAmerica presented and the spirit of those who came from numerous places throughout the world to pursue the American ideals of freedom, democracy, liberty, and equality and who were willing to fight for those rights.
Our journey continues with Amazing Grace as a tribute to our fallen heroes. The production conveys the price our ancestors have been willing to pay in the cause of freedom and liberty. Amazing Grace, a hymn originally written in 1779 has become known as a favorite with supporters of freedom and human rights.

As we resume our journey, we will celebrate our freedom by featuring each section of the corps throughout a production based on the musical themes of Gordon Goodwin’s Sing, Sang, Sung and  the Andrews’ Sisters Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company C which will bookend an exciting, high velocity percussion feature.  Our celebration is designed to create fun and excitement and have the crowd dancing in the aisles…Statesmen style! 

The show concludes with a musical and visual statement signifying the American Destiny of bringing people together from throughout the world who believe in the values that make this nation great.  The American motto of “From Many One” will be conveyed through a richly harmonic score of “One Voice.”

Just before noon, on November 30th, 2008, Post 199 in Hawthorne, NJ was filled to capacity with more than 150 returning and prospective members of the Hawthorne Caballeros anxiously waiting for the official kick-off of the 2009 season. What a turn out and the feeling in the room was 'amazing'! Not just because of the number of people, not just because of the joy of seeing old friends and meeting new, not just because of the rush we get the first time we see the historic trophy room… it was all of that and so much more.

You could feel the excitement in the post. The orientation presentation built on that excitement with the first sounds of the Caballeros Recruitment Video followed by the introduction of the staff and administration. After a complimentary lunch, the sections broke out into separate rehearsal facilities to begin the first official day of the 2009 season.

If Open House is an indicator, we are off to an amazing season. The focus of more than 75 brass players, the intensity of the great turn out for the percussion section and more than 30 passionate guard members settled in to our hometown in Hawthorne. The spirit of every member past, present and future was alive and truly heated up the cold damp day in Hawthorne.

To our new members - Welcome to Hawthorne.
To our returning members – Welcome Home.
To anyone else looking for a place to march – Welcome to our next camp on December 20th & 21st, 2008.

More details to follow.

To get additional information on membership, contact Mike Ryan by phone (973) 709-0500 ext. 1532
or email Mike at cabscontra@aol.com.