Southern Nebraska Register
The Marching Cavaliers of Bishop Neumann Jr.-Sr. High School in Wahoo were selected to represent Nebraska in the National Independence Day Parade in Washington, D.C. July 4.
Director Bill Kellett sent in a video application for the band a year and a half before the event, and was pleased when they were chosen. As the Neumann band was quite small compared to other school bands, organizers asked Kellett to increase the number of participants. The students who graduated in May agreed to remain with the band to participate, and incoming ninth-graders joined the band, as well. With their parents’ approval, they participated in extra practices to learn how to march with the band.
In addition to extra practices, the band marched in several parades to rehearse their routine: the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in O’Neill, the Weston 150th Anniversary Parade and the Papillion Days Parade. As July approached, two parents drove to Washington, D.C. with a trailer to transport the students’ uniforms, instruments and other equipment in advance of the National Independence Day Parade.
The band flew to D.C. July 1, and began their trip as tourists. They took in important sites such as the U.S. Capitol, Iwo Jima and Pentagon monuments, and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and the National Archives Museum, where the students saw the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. After a dinner cruise on the Potomac late on the evening of July 3, they received bad news: due to extreme heat, the National Independence Day Parade was canceled.
“The kids were devastated,” Kellett said. “They’d worked so hard to represent the state and Bishop Neumann and Wahoo, and all the parishes that feed into Neumann and their towns, and that chance was snatched away.”
Kellett reflected on the students’ hard work, but also the support from the school, families, and the community. He started making phone calls to find an alternative way for the band to perform, and others did too, including members of Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen’s office, and Neumann parents, both on the trip and back home.
That support came to fruition on the morning of the 4th of July, when they got word about another parade in Washington, D.C.: the Capitol Hill Parade near the Marine barracks. The organizers happily welcomed the Marching Cavaliers when Kellett called, and the band made the 30-minute drive just in time to line up as the very last band in the parade.
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Courtesy images
“They marched up a storm,” Kellett said. “They just did an outstanding job.”
Since the heat had canceled so many events, the parade route was packed with an enthusiastic audience who cheered “Go Nebraska” as the band went by. Kellett was pleased to report that parade watchers asked him if they were chosen to be the last band to march because their performance – including the “Cav Swagger” dance to a cadence – was so well done. At the conclusion of the parade, the band joined in playing and dancing with a “Go-go band” of adult performers.
Kellett called that part “a great moment for the kids to just enjoy their music and to be part of what that band was doing.”
“The last thing they said to the kids was ‘don’t stop playing,’” he recalled. “It was music education at its finest.”
The experience more than made up for the disappointment of the prior evening.
“Kudos to the kids for keeping their chins up” and making the most of it, Kellett said. He was proud of their hard work and all the support that allowed them to have the experience.
“If you support your band program, good things can really happen,” he said.
That evening, the group managed to get within a block of the fireworks show at the Washington Monument.
The students closed out the trip with more sight-seeing and Sunday Mass in St. Matthew the Apostle Cathedral celebrated by Cardinal Robert W. McElroy, with beautiful music Kellett said showed “how patriotism and faith can go hand in hand.”
