Grown-up Band Kids Help Energize the Crowd

(Foreground, from left) Adults playing clarinet with the pep band are Mariah Goode and Claire Erickson. Submitted.

Gibraltar High welcomes adults to practice and play in pep band

Traditionally, high school music booster clubs help raise funds for trips and to purchase equipment or materials that the district budget doesn’t cover, but the Gibraltar Music Boosters took their support for the music program to a new level this month. 

Boosters, along with band parents including Mariah Goode, got permission to invite adults to join the pep band. After passing background checks, a handful of them performed with the high school pep band during the Sept. 23 football game against Gillett.

Goode and band director Charlie Eckhardt welcomed community members to join the fun, and more than half a dozen people quickly expressed interest in playing. But this was not the first time adults have joined the Gibraltar pep band. Last winter, when the Vikings reached the state tournament in basketball, Goode, along with a few Gibraltar alumni who reside in the Madison area, tuned up and turned out to support the team by performing.

Music Boosters leader Sam Perlman, Goode’s husband, said that in a small school such as Gibraltar, band members who also play basketball obviously can’t play instruments during the games.

“Many of the kids who are student-athletes are also in the band,” he said.

It also became obvious last year that the music programs lost a lot of steam in 2020 and 2021 when students spent a bulk of their days learning from home because of the district’s COVID-19 safety protocols.

Perlman said “it’s almost impossible” to practice through virtual learning for band and chorus performances.

For the first performance of the year, local musicians – including Goode and professional artist and Gibraltar graduate Claire Erickson on clarinet, and local parent and baker Amanda Shepit on trombone – played along with the students, Perlman said.

Math teacher, professional jazz musician and soccer coach Eric Schroeder also joined the band, but it wasn’t a first for him by any means. Schroeder, who played some local saxophone gigs this summer, frequently practices with the Gibraltar bands to provide support and occasionally share some of his knowledge. He also joined the pep band a few times as a lone adult in the group last year.

Schroeder said he didn’t have a lot of advance notice that the adults were going to join the pep band for the Sept. 23 game. When he did learn about it, he rushed home after soccer practice to grab his saxophone. Soccer players and brothers Trey Perlman, who plays clarinet, and drummer Theo Goode grabbed a quick snack and also fetched their instruments from the band room.

Schroeder said it’s fun to play music at the games, and it’s also rewarding to perform in a band with students he normally sees in a classroom setting.

“It’s an opportunity for me to work with kids I teach and to see a different side of them,” he said.

Goode and Perlman said they would not expect parents, teachers and other adult musicians who volunteer for the pep band to attend every game or performance.

“We don’t want it to be an onerous commitment,” Perlman said. “We really want to bring some positive energy to the music program.”

Goode said it’s fun at the games, and Schroeder said it’s great to see community members and parents who want to help “support athletics through the arts.”

Adults who want to help the pep band may contact Goode at [email protected]. Volunteers will need to fill out the district’s Volunteer/Employee Background Check Packet on the school’s website at gibraltar.k12.wi.us/domain/1338.

“Make sure to let me know what instrument you play, and whether you still own it or if we’d need to find you one,” Goode wrote in a note to parents, community members and alumni. “Don’t worry if you haven’t played in a long time – we’ll figure out a way to organize some rehearsals, and it’ll be fun even if we are mostly just following the kids’ lead and playing half the notes (which is what I did last March).”

Goode said the adults would be asked to play at games and meets when student-musicians are busy playing their sports. Though she’s providing a full pep-band schedule to adult volunteers, she said she doubts that the adults would perform at events such as the Homecoming bonfire or Fall Fest parade.