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Color guard member Brittani Dumont marches with the Sanford High band in the school’s parking lot as they prepare to perform in the Inaugural Parade next week.

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Photos by Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer Sanford High School Marching Band members Hillary Cusack, Denyelle Surrell, Katey Smith, Kristen Guillmette and David Higgins, right to left, practice at the school on Monday, January 12, 2008. Band members have to learn a new skill for the inaugural parade: making turns in formation because the parade route has three turns in it. Most parades only involve marching in straight lines.

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Senior Bobbie Jean Dyer tries to keep her fingers warm and nimble as she plays trumpet in the cold.

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Stanford High School altosax player dressed for cold weather.

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Freshman Debbie Erwin spins her flag.

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Matt Doiron directs practice Monday. The Inaugural Parade will be the “pinnacle of my professional career,” he said.

 

— By JUSTIN ELLIS

Staff Writer

SANFORD — Hockey players packed into a school bus are eager to leave the parking lot of Sanford High School. All that is standing between them and the road are Matt Doiron and the marching band.

In the remaining days before the band heads to Washington for President-elect Barack Obama's Inaugural Parade, the parking lot is Doiron's Pennsylvania Avenue. And just like the famous route in the nation's capital, sometimes traffic has to come to a halt outside the high school.

"The kids have done a nice job learning the music. They're playing well and going straight forward on the street. They look like a million bucks, " he said. "We get to the point where we have to turn and it's been a real challenge."

While there is plenty of work still left before the band boards a bus for Washington on Saturday, learning a wider formation than the band is accustomed to and being able to negotiate tight street corners are Doiron's main concerns.

That and managing the excitement, of course.

"There have been a few times where we've had to read them the riot act and say it's good that you're excited abou t this, but you have to realize you're a week away from the largest performance that any band from Sanford High School has ever given in its history," he said.

The 76-member band was chosen from thousands of applicants to take part in the parade, which follows the swearing-in ceremony for Obama and Vice President-elect Joseph Biden on Tuesday.

Senior saxophone player Stephanie Brock said students recognize they have an opportunity that few bands have ever had.

"I think it's going to be really cool to look back on it and say 'I was there' and say I saw the first African-American president be inaugurated," Brock said. "I think it will be one of the greatest moments of my lifetime."

Inauguration Day will be a long one for the band, as they'll have to leave their Maryland hotel early enough to be at the Pentagon for a security check that begins at 3 a.m. The band will then travel by bus through a secure route to the Ellipse in front of the White House, where bands and other parade groups will be waiting.

When the time comes, they'll march down Madison Drive along the National Mall, then head north on 4th Street, where they'll meet Pennsylvania Avenue as the real parade begins around 2 p.m.

They'll play only two songs, "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and "The Maine State Song," as they pass the viewing area and thousands of cameras before finishing the more than mile-long route to the White House.

But during their recent practice there was no White House, only a warm band room waiting after they made several loops around the parking lot in 25-degree weather.

Junior saxophone player April Dehetre said being able to play in cold weather takes skill, although she hopes Washington will be warmer than Maine.

The band has some experience in cold-weather performances after marching in the St. Patrick's Day Parade in New York City in 2006. The band submitted footage of that parade as part of its application to the Armed Forces Inaugural Committee.

Dehetre was at that parade. She said the only way to get through it was to tough it out.

"By the end of the parade I couldn't tell which button I was pushing without looking, because I had lost the ability to feel what my fingers were doing," she said.

Senior Breanne Drake, a member of the color guard, said the idea of playing in the Inaugural Parade creates a mix of excitement and anxiety.

"It's nerve-wracking," she joked. "Being told if you hold your flag the wrong way you could be (in trouble.)"

The band is paying its own way to Washington after raising the $25,000 needed to send the students and 35 chaperones. While there, they plan to take in museums such as the Smithsonian and landmarks...