(Video courtesy of Mrs. Robin Gilbreath)
The CHS band had a brief scare while at the Chief Ladiga Marching Festival at Alabama’s Piedmont High School. In the middle of their performance, there was a brief episode of pandemonium in the stands when some audience members heard the sound of a school bus backfiring and caught a glimpse of a child’s toy gun.
Fortunately, it was just a false alarm, and when tensions subsided, all 120 Marching Indians returned to the field and performed their show from the top. The show ran about an hour later than expected, but more importantly, no one was hurt and there was no genuine threat to anyone’s safety.
In spite of the unexpected obstacle, the band scored all 1’s in every section (1 is the best score on a three-tier system: 1 for “superior”; 2 for “excellent; 3 for “good”). The Color Guard additionally scored Best in Class.
For their next competition, the Marching Indians’ will be traveling to Pierce county in South Georgia. The Band Boosters are accepting donations to help the young musicians finance the overnight trip; contact them on Facebook here.
Comments
The WHS band was in the warm up field with the guy with the gun! They actually saw him pointing the gun at them and took off! They were not able to return and perform for competition because of the trauma it caused for some of the students. They could not tell it was fake. As a parent getting the call from your child that there is a guy pointing a gun at him from just a few feet away is very scary. I’m glad that it was fake and that everyone was ok!
I’m sorry to say but this band on the field had NO ideal what was going on. Our kids from the Weaver High School band are the ones that went threw the most horrifying thing they may ever go threw. As I saw in another video this band was playing the whole time it went on. It was not a bus backfiring so we in Weaver Alabama really don’t appreciate all these lies. God knows what happened and so does our kids. Our kids are having to go threw counseling now so I pray this band never has to go threw what OUR kids did.
We as band students and parents shouldn’t be competing for who is more validated in their fear. It was a harrowing experience for everyone involved.
I don’t know why you’re going to come in here, with your poorly-spelled histrionics, and denigrate the kids from Chattooga for being on the field when this happened. If you think for a second that excluded them from the trauma that day, you obviously didn’t hear my panicked phone call with one of my sons, as he was simultaneous fearing for not only the safety of his bandmates as well as his family. Nor did see me hold my other son, trembling in my arms as the shock of the whole ordeal was still hitting him. Did you even stop to empathize with the Chattooga kids, try to imagine the horror of being in the middle of performing your heart out, only to realize halfway through your show that there is an active shooter situation in progress, and you’re in the middle of a football field, completely vulnerable? Or were you already too busy with self-aggrandizing, as if somehow it matters?
Everyone’s fear was very much valid. The performing band didn’t know why everyone was running. They just knew something was wrong so their imaginations surely ran wild. We as band students and parents arent competing to see who should and shouldn’t be allowed to be afraid. It was a harrowing experience for all of us.
Might I add to the previous comments, this is no competition to decide who’s feeling are more valid. We all were traumatized, every single person in that stadium was effected it doesn’t matter if you were the ones who saw it happen or if you were on the field in the middle of a show. It was a terrifying for all of us; parents, friends, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, and grandparents. We may not have had an idea what was going on during our show but being told to get off the field and run because there was a potential shooter in the stadium does not make it any less terrifying than being right there in front of it. We all felt fear that day not just one band or one person everybody did.