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ELKINS -- The Elkins High School Alumni Band will celebrate the 95th anniversary of the school's band program during the EHS home football game against Buckhannon-Upshur on Sept. 15.
The Alumni Band is currently seeking former members to take part in the anniversary celebration, which will be dedicated to former EHS band director Bob Dunkerley, who passed away in July.
"Bob was coming to the event, so we wanted to dedicate the entire evening to him," Jeff Caplinger, director of the alumni band board, told The Inter-Mountain Monday. "All of the festivities we have that night, will be in his honor."
The alumni band will perform together with the current EHS band throughout the evening, and at halftime of the game.
"The alumni band will eat together before the game and then we will rehearse," Caplinger said. "We are going to march around and down to the field where we will play the national anthem with the current band. Then during halftime we will play the 'Alma Mater', the 'Fight Song', and 'Charleston' with the current band."
Caplinger said former directors and other alumni will also be honored during the halftime show.
"This is the fourth time that we have had a big celebration like this," he said. "The first one was during the 75th anniversary and then we did one for the 80th, which was the biggest celebration that we've had. We did one for the 85th anniversary and then there was nothing for the 90th. So we are excited to be doing this again."
Caplinger noted there will be memorabilia and old uniforms on display in the cafeteria before the game.
"We will have items in the cafeteria not only for alumni to look at, but for the general public as well," Caplinger said. "It will be open throughout the evening for anyone who wants to go in and take a look at it."
Caplinger hopes getting the word out about this year's anniversary celebration will attract more alumni to attend and make it the best celebration to date.
"We will take as many alumni band members as we can get," he said. "We've made arrangements for instruments for those who need them. And people can go to our website and download all the music we will be performing. People can also go on the website and watch videos of the routine parts if they are in percussion, twirlers or flags."
Caplinger said because some people come from far away to take part in celebrations like this, organizers decided a while back to do away with rehearsals.
"We had a big celebration for John 'Superfan' Zirbs and we didn't even do a rehearsal," Caplinger said. "We put the whole thing together in a week and we had 75 people show up at Wimer (Stadium) to perform with the current band. We just had the music available and people showed up and played.
"It was pretty easy, so we decided to keep that idea going. And if everybody has the music ahead of time, it's not like we are doing something they haven't played before, it's all pretty simple. So the people who show up on game night, we are just going to run through it before the game."
This will be the first performance for the alumni band since it took part in the special performance at Wimer Stadium for Zirbs two years ago.
Caplinger pointed out that any former band member is welcome to play with the band and that there are multiple ways someone can participate.
"In the past we've only had one way to participate. You came, you played and you did," he said. "We have so many people who participated in the past who are no longer able to do some of the things we've done, so we want to make sure we include everyone with three levels of participation."
Caplinger said the first level is full participation, which is marching and playing. The second level of participation is for those who will play and not march. The third level of participation is no marching or playing, just being there to show support for the band.
"Not every alumni band does the things we do, but the ones that do have good participation," said Caplinger. "We for the most part have had really good participation and I think that speaks a lot about the history and traditions of the band at Elkins."
There is a $25 fee to participate in the event. The fee includes a meal before the game and a t-shirt, which the alumni band will wear during its performance. For more information or to sign up, go to ehsalumniband.org.