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They missed the Starlight, but Canby High marching band plays an even bigger stage at Grand Floral Parade

By Eder Campuzano, The Oregonian
Published: June 9, 2019, 2:19pm

Portland — Nick Luchterhand couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

Just one day after the Canby High School marching band was stranded on campus when its ride to the Starlight Parade didn’t materialize, Rose Festival spokesman Rich Jarvis was on the phone, offering Canby a spot on an even bigger stage.

“That call, it almost brought me to tears,” Luchterhand said.

Saturday morning, right on time, three yellow school buses pulled up to the Moda Center carrying Luchterhand’s crew. And within minutes, the students, clad in blue and white uniforms, were hoisting their instruments up the stairs to the venue, ready to march in the Grand Floral Parade.

Festival personnel worked the band into one of the last slots, bringing up the rear of the procession.

Jarvis said extending the invite was a no-brainer once he and Rose Festival Chief Operating Officer Marilyn Clint — better known among event staffers as the “parade queen” — saw the news stories about the Canby High band’s plight.

With no ride to the Starlight Parade, Canby High School band marches in parking lot

“We put on the uniforms, put our instruments together, and marched around the school parking lot.”

“It was just really nice that we could give that story a happy ending,” Jarvis said.

Officials in the Rose Festival’s band program typically decide who gets to perform in the event’s grand finale. Jarvis said those folks are well tuned to the talents of the region’s music programs, inviting those they see as ready for the big show.

The Starlight Parade, on the other hand, follows an application process. Luchterhand, now in his third year as the marching band director at Canby High, said his students trained for a month to perform on the shorter route.

Once word came down they’d be playing the Grand Floral, it was time to double down on some of those exercises. They had less than a week to get into top shape.

“This is a longer parade and so we needed to train endurance, just like a football or a basketball team would,” Luchterhand said.

Juniors Mimi Goldbeck and Svetlana Szenasis, the band’s drum majors, said the training was rough but worth it to play to a bigger audience and on a larger stage.

“I was just ecstatic,” Goldbeck said of hearing the news she’d be performing in the Grand Floral Parade.

The two said they were disappointed when the buses didn’t show the previous week, stranding them at Canby High. The band made the most of things by marching around the school parking lot. School officials later determined a processing error had been made after Luchterhand submitted the paperwork to the bus company arranging transportation to the Starlight Parade.

“It was a mix of emotions, not knowing whether we would get to use all of our hard work,” Szenasis said.

Kathy Botz, president of the marching band’s booster club, said she, too, was almost brought to tears when she heard Luchterhand and the kids would be marching in the Grand Floral Parade.

“Nick and these kids, they really deserve it,” she said.

Botz said Luchterhand has invigorated the Canby High band program. Her son, also a junior, was in the marching band at Baker Prairie Middle School when Luchterhand was the program director there.

A Canby High grad himself, Luchterhand has impressed Botz with the way he encourages students in the program.

“Band has given my son a place where he can excel and shine,” she said.

Luchterhand and the delegation from Canby High arrived at the Moda Center 45 minutes after the parade began at 10 a.m. They were due to start marching more than an hour later, at 11:50 a.m.

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With about 10 minutes to go, the band practiced a couple of songs, Luchterhand beaming as he walked the perimeter of the assembled rows.

“This is just the purest gift you can give to these students, to march in the Grand Floral Parade,” he said.

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