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The RHHS Marching Band plays on
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The Richmond Hill High School Marching Band, shown here performing from earlier this month, is going to perform in the National Cherry Blossom Parade in April in Washington, D.C. - photo by Bryan Browning
Brent Zell
bzell@bryancountynews.com
Updated: Nov 24, 2015, 11:51 PM
Published: Nov 24, 2015, 11:55 PM

To paraphrase a well-known quote, a band’s work is never done.

The Richmond Hill High School Marching Band just won another big event — claiming the grand-champion title at the Georgia Marching Band Series on Nov. 7 in Thomson — and now it’s preparing for another one. The band has been invited to perform in the National Cherry Blossom Parade in April in Washington.

On Nov. 19, the Bryan County Board of Education gave its approval for the band to use Kelly Tours Charter Buses for its trip to the nation’s capital. It is scheduled for April 15-17, with the parade taking place April 16.

“It’s an amazing accomplishment,” Bryan County Schools Superintendent Dr. Paul Brooksher said after the BoE meeting. “The RHHS band has done an exceptional job of building its capacity and highlighting talent.”

It’s the season that won’t end for the RHHS band — one that started in June.

Daniel Kiene, the director of bands at RHHS, said that’s when “a lot of nuts and bolts get done” ahead of band-camp planning, which started July 1. Around July 14, the camp begins, running eight to nine hours a day for “two solid weeks.” School starts shortly after that and brings the practices, football-game performances and trips to competitions.

“They’re very committed from early part of July until literally November,” Kiene said.

But what a competition season it was. The RHHS band won three of the four events it competed in, with the only non-win coming at the LaFayette Marching Classic on Oct. 24 in Fayetteville. However, Kiene said that trip was part of a plan to improve, to see how RHHS matched up with larger-program bands that have more financial resources.

Eliza DeRienzo, a drum major in her third year with the band, said other bands in Atlanta had cannons, smoke and people suspended above the others. Still, the RHHS drum majors earned second place in their category in the open class, and Kiene said the program received “fantastic feedback.”

“We just have the same talent as them. It just shows how much harder you want to work, despite your budget,” she said.

The Cherry Blossom Parade brings another opportunity for the RHHS Band to see how it compares on a big stage. The annual parade drew more than 160,000 spectators this past spring, according to NationalCherryBlossomFestival.org.

“It’s a higher caliber of parade than we’re used to,” said Libby Malloy, a drum major in her fourth year with the band.
The band, which already is working on fundraising for the trip to Washington, had to apply for a spot in the parade. That meant sending in video and audio recordings and a rèsumè. Kiene said it was a long shot for RHHS to get into the parade, but the band wants to get on a national stage in order to be considered for events like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

But the Wildcat Marching Band got in on its first try, with the acceptance letter arriving in September. Kiene said it’s been a blur since then — and exciting.

“This one is very much about being selected based on quality of program and quality of kids,” Kiene said.

 

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Later yall, its been fun
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Ted O'Neil
Updated: May 23, 2018, 6:03 PM
Published: May 23, 2018, 6:05 PM

This is among the last pieces I’ll ever write for the Bryan County News.

Friday is my last day with the paper, and come June 1 I’m headed back to my native Michigan.

I moved here in 2015 from the Great Lake State due to my wife’s job. It’s amicable, but she has since moved on to a different life in a different state, and it’s time for me to do the same.

My son Thomas, an RHHS grad as of Saturday, also is headed back to Michigan to play basketball for a small school near Ann Arbor called Concordia University. My daughter, Erin, is in law school at University of Toledo. She had already begun her college volleyball career at Lourdes University in Ohio when we moved down here and had no desire to leave the Midwest.

With both of them and the rest of my family up north, there’s no reason for me to stay here. I haven’t missed winter one bit, but I’m sure I won’t miss the sand gnats, either.

Shortly after we arrived here in 2015, I got a job in communications with a certain art school in Savannah for a few short months. It was both personally and professionally toxic and I’ll leave it at that.

In March 2016 I signed on with the Bryan County News as assistant editor and I’ve loved every minute of it. My “first” newspaper career, in the late 80s and early 90s, was great. But when I left it to work in politics and later with a free-market think tank, I never pictured myself as an ink-stained wretch again.

Like they say, never say never.

During my time here at the News, I’ve covered everything that came along. That’s one big difference between working for a weekly as opposed to a daily paper. Reporters at a daily paper have a “beat” to cover. At a weekly paper like this, you cover … life. Sports, features, government meetings, crime, fundraisers, parades, festivals, successes, failures and everything in between. Oh, and hurricanes. Two of them. I’ll take a winter blizzard over that any day.

Along the way I’ve met a lot of great people. Volunteers, business owners, pastors, students, athletes, teachers, coaches, co-workers, first responders, veterans, soldiers and yes, even some politicians.

And I learned that the same adrenalin rush from covering “breaking news” that I experienced right out of college is still just as exciting nearly 30 years later.

With as much as I’ve written about the population increase and traffic problems, at least for a few short minutes my departure means there will be one less vehicle clogging up local roads. At least until I pass three or four moving vans headed this way as I get on northbound I-95.

The hub-bub over growth here can be humorous, unintentional and ironic all at once. We often get comments on our Facebook page that go something like this: “I’ve lived here for (usually less than five years) and the growth is out of control! We need a moratorium on new construction.”

It’s like people who move into phase I of “Walden Woods” subdivision after all the trees are cleared out and then complain about trees being cut down for phase II.

Bryan County will always hold a special place in my heart and I definitely plan on visiting again someday. My hope is that my boss, Jeff Whitten (one of the best I’ve ever had), will let me continue to be part of the Pembroke Mafia Football League from afar. If the Corleone family could expand to Vegas, there’s no reason the PMFL can’t expand to Michigan.

But the main reason I want to return someday is about that traffic issue. After all, I’ll need to see it with my own eyes before I’ll believe that Highway 144 actually got widened.

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