MAGNET COVE, Ark. — Dozens of students from a small Central Arkansas high school will get to show off their talents at one of the biggest football events of the year.
The Magnet Cove High School Marching Band will participate in the Peach Bowl Music Festival. They will march in the Peach Bowl Parade and perform during a marching band competition on the field of Mercedes-Benz Stadium the night before the game.
Magnet Cove is one of five schools from around the country invited to participate, according to band director Andy Beck.
“We’re gonna be scared out of our minds,” Trinity Pearson said.
“But we’re gonna get it done,” her friend, Mariah Whitley, responded.
“Yeah, we are,” Pearson exclaimed.
“Because we’re scared every time,” Whitley added.
The band found out this past spring that they were accepted into the music festival, which accompanies the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, a playoff semifinal game featuring #1 LSU and #4 Oklahoma.
Beck said he nearly threw away the application form, because he gets swamped with them every year. But he decided to submit a tape of a performance, hoping to find out how his band stacked up compared with those from bigger schools. Instead, the committee decided Magnet Cove was worthy.
“I believed then,” Beck said, “and I believe now: this is the group to do it with. I think this is a good group of kids. This is a good group of musicians. I think they’ve got the talent, you know, I think they’ve got the drive. Let’s take them out of the garage a little bit and let’s open them up and see what they can do.”
The students said they were less excited when they first heard the news.
“Well, it was kind of split half and half,” Joby Terry, a senior trombone player, explained. “Half of us were like, ‘we’re probably not going to actually go,’ and then the other half was like, ‘yeah, we’re gonna go!’”
“It’s just cause we’ve always had, like, stuff that we thought we might be able to do in the past, but it never really worked out,” Zach Wacaster, a fellow senior trombone player, added. “And this is the one thing we actually, like, get to do.”
The band started fundraising immediately. They held march-a-thons, cooked burgers at tailgates, sold cheesecakes, had a booth at Brickfest, and hosted a haunted house.
“By the time that I had gotten done with the first march-a-thon no one wanted to give me any more money,” Whitley, a senior who is one of two drum majors, said. “I had basically run out of resources. So, I just had to keep asking my grandparents for money. It’s kind of sad, asking for so much money, but it was really nice to see that a bunch of the community members were still so willing to help us out whenever they could.”
“We’re really loved, and by this trip, we kind of see that,” Pearson, a sophomore in the color guard, added, “because everybody’s just really proud of us. And I mean, last year, we didn’t think anything like this would be possible, and I don’t think the community did, either. And then we did it, and now everybody’s like, ‘whoa!’”
While collecting money was a year-round task, working on the program had to wait until December. The band worked on its regular repertoire until football season ended, when it could then focus on the new material it would play in Atlanta.
“So, we usually take about two or two and a half weeks to learn one of the routines,” Pearson explained, “and now we’re learning four in a three-week time period.”
While the band marches during halftime of football games (weather permitting), Whitley said they often doubted whether they could learn everything in such a short amount of time. “It’s really impressive to see that these people who I’ve known since forever, pretty much, are kind of buckling down and getting all the work done very impressively,” she said.
“I’m proud of these kids,” Beck said. “I’m proud of every bit of the work they’ve done. I don’t say it enough. But, I, you know, these kids, man, they are my family. They are my extended family. Every one of these kids. And, you know, I’ll go to bat for them and do whatever I can for them.”
Beck is in his sixth year as a music teacher and band director at Magnet Cove. His comment about feeling like the band is a family was reciprocated by his students.
“Before Mr. Beck came, we went through, like, four or five different band directors that were only here for, like, two years each,” Wacaster explained. “And now, he’s really like a father to us. And he, we, like, we’ve become a family.”
“And it’s the most fun I’ve ever had in my life,” Whitley stated. “I just didn’t know where I was gonna go, what I was gonna do. I knew that school was all that I had, cause all I could figure out to do with myself was, you know, ‘yay, I got an A on this. Check that off my list. Yay, I got an A on this. Check that off my list.’ But it wasn’t fulfilling.
“Mr. Beck, here, kind of became my dad, and took me into color guard. Took me into band. And I’ve known where I’ve placed my feet ever since.”
Beck said the other schools in the festival are a mix of sizes with students from a variety of backgrounds. He hopes this experience will open their eyes to the possibilities ahead of them. “I always teach them that, just because you’re from a small town doesn’t mean you have to act like it,” he said. “It doesn’t mean that you have to carry that burden with you. I try to teach them, you know, be a little bit extra. Do a little bit extra.
“So, the opportunity for them to go: this is all them. This is all them. This is them working, this is them going through the program and learning their parts. And, you know, taking their music home and studying. So, this is all them.”
“We’ve always pictured ourselves as, kind of, it’s just us,” Whitley mentioned. “It’s never been like we are a program, we are a people and we can do great things.”
Wacaster said he is excited to represent Magnet Cove, “just to get to show people that just a small band from Magnet Cove can go and compete with bigger bands.”
The band is still behind its fundraising goal with the final payment to the Peach Bowl Music Festival organizers due by the end of this week. Beck predicted that the band will have raised approximately $66,000 by the time they board their bus on December 26.
Anyone who wishes to donate can either email Beck at Andy.beck@magnetcove.k12.ar.us or contribute to the band's GoFundMe account.