For five years, Michael Stone has been leading Bourbon County High School in Paris, Kentucky to success.
Under his leadership, the marching band has won state championships and national championships. These accomplishments have been leading up to this year’s trip to participate in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. This trip is a great coup, for not just Stone and his students, but their families as well, with over 300 travelers taking the trip to New York City. In addition, because the trip was delayed two years, Stone invited graduates to come back just for this trip.
With around 130 students going, Bourbon County will be the smallest band in the parade, but they’ll be putting on a big show, performing a mash-up of “Angels We Have Heard on High” and “My Old Kentucky Home”.
While the marching band was performing at national in Indiana, we talked with Stone over the phone, asking about why this trip is so important for his students, and how it all came together with the help of Super Holiday Tours.
How did you get into the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade?
I actually applied for the parade back in 2019. Then, I was just sitting in school one day, and I got a call and it said it was from New York. I just thought it was a spam call, but I answered it, and it was the Macy’s Foundation inviting us to be in the parade. We were actually going to announce it in 2020, and then the shutdown happened, so we had to sit on a secret for a year. We announced it last year, but everything got pushed back a year. And so we’re going this year, even though we were supposed to go in 2021.
What are you most excited about for this trip?
It’s the first time that our band has ever been in the parade, so that’s exciting in itself. They kind of chose us because of being a smaller band on a national scale that just seems to do really well with what we do. It’s just exciting that we get to represent Kentucky and small bands in the country, so other band programs our size can see this is what you can achieve. And our school is an area of Kentucky that is not very affluent, so for a good chunk of the kids, probably 90% or more, this is the first time they’ve ever been to New York City, and probably one of the only times they’ll get to go to the city. That’s the most exciting part for me, is being able to take the kids to see all this different stuff that they’ve never experienced.
How did Super Holiday get involved?
Well, I knew Casey, just being personal friends, so when we got accepted, he was the first travel company I called. Of course, we got bids from other companies, but I told Casey and all the agencies that we contacted, “I want to get to experience everything you can possibly do in New York, all the tourist stuff, for under $1,400.” And Super Holiday was the only company that was able to come through with it. They’re going to see the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, World Trade Center, the Rockettes Christmas Special. They’re going to do an educational tour of Manhattan, spend time in Time Square, go and see The Lion King. They’re able to do everything you want in New York.
And Casey threw in too, since we’ll be there on Thanksgiving night, we’re doing a dinner boat cruise the night of Thanksgiving, so that everybody can still eat together and everything with all the families. He’s the only one who put that together.
What challenges did you have to overcome to make this trip happen?
One of the biggest things that was difficult was trying to announce it, because we were still doing distance learning. So just trying to get everyone together and trying to generate that level of excitement, just because the kids weren’t at school. It’s one thing when they’re at school and they can walk in and see all the stuff every day and be excited about it, but by the time they got back to school, the initial excitement had worn off, and so that was a challenge.
Then, I think every band program in the country suffered a little bit during COVID, just as far as the quality of learning the kids were getting. It’s way different teaching bands through a computer than in person. And really, none of us were teaching band—those of us that were mildly successful at it, we were basically just teaching private lessons through the computer and trying to pay attention to individual kids every so often, so that we could continue their learning and hopefully help them grow while they’re at home on their own. That was the biggest challenge, and then just coming back and trying to put back together a band of kids who have gotten used to never playing with each other.
How has the band held up despite those challenges?
This year has been incredible and super stressful at the same time, because I would say this is probably the best band I’ve ever had, and it’s been a real push to get there. I’ve told the kids, most bands suffer competitively on the years that they go to Macy’s, just because they have to split their focus. And so we’ve really pushed to push ourselves competitively and get ready for the parade simultaneously. We’re at nationals now, and we’ll get back on Sunday, and they will have a week to get ready for the parade. And then it’s go time.
After going through all this, what advice would you pass on to other educators?
The only advice I would give to any other educators, just push yourself, and if you push yourself, you’ll be pushing the kids, because I don’t think anybody should ever doubt what kids can accomplish. Like, we weren’t even signed up to come to nationals—we signed up about three weeks ago. And if you just keep pushing your kids like that, just upping your level of expectation of them, you’ll be shocked at what they can produce. And I think a lot of times, people try to play it safe a little bit too much. But I say just go just take a risk and see what all you can accomplish. If it doesn’t work out exactly how you want to, you’ll learn something from it.