Over 15 years at Chapman High School in South Carolina, Kevin Horton has built the band program into a family of sorts, through the power of performances, student travel, and fundraising.
This high school marching band travels whenever they can with Super Holiday, visiting Universal Orlando last fall and heading to Disney World this year, plus years of playing in the New York City Veterans Day Parade.
Horton is also involved with the Miss Mabry pageant for middle schoolers, which acts as a booster for the band program—something he never expected to do, but has turned out to be an incredible fundraising tool and community builder.
We talked with Horton about his passion for education and student travel, and the challenges his band has overcome.
Why do you think student travel is valuable?
Well, it gives them something to do that they don’t get inside of a normal classroom. They get to interact and learn more about each other and it’s just a collaborative spirit, like band is. When they’re in these performances publicly, they’re both representing their school and the state sometimes, considering how big of a program it is. Like, if we go to the Magic Kingdom and play down there, there’s people from all over the world there that get to see a little snippet of what we do at our little three-A high school.
In recent years, are there any sort of challenges that you’ve had to overcome with travel?
Kids are still kids and they still want to get out and do these things and they love interacting with each other. Even though their phones and stuff like that, social media, are a big part of their lives, they still like to get out, ride rides, spend time with each other outdoors, have a good time, learn more about their roommates that they end up rooming with. And the performance piece is something kind of unique to band, especially because fans are more visible going to work ushers in courses and those kinds of things. So, they get to not only play on Friday night football games and competitions and things we go to, but when they sit down and they eat together, they travel with each other, and they’re doing all this stuff, everybody’s got one goal, one similar kind of idea.
And COVID, we took a hit generally in music education, but our numbers here stayed strong. And we met online religiously, and the kids had a good time and they bridged the gap really well. We didn’t really have a fall off at all. So they’re really involved here, and that’s part of the family I think we’ve created here and the atmosphere that we’ve created. They understand it’s less about them as an individual and more about the program as a whole.
Were there any highlights to your Universal trip?
It was a great trip. Our hotel room was actually wonderful, we stayed at the Dockside Inn in Orlando. It was absolutely wonderful. The performance it was cool for the kids to get to be able to say see the backstage area, we kind of went in the back door to the place and we had these folks back there. They were extremely nice to us. They handled everything. They have water for us, I mean, it was hot. They welcomed us, and it was cool for the kids to get to see the props and everything that they build in the back and some of the new stuff they were working on.
Then they opened the gates and it made them feel really unique and real special when they opened the gate and making announcements along the little route about, “Hey, here comes Chapman High School Band and all this other stuff.” So that was really neat. And the pictures that we’ve got were wonderful and it’s a good promotional tool for us as well.
How about your upcoming Disney trip?
The plan is to march through the Magic Kingdom and we’ve done that before, so it’s really exciting. And we’ll visit three parks in three days and it’ll be fun. And it’ll wear them out but I mean, they love it. They can’t get enough. Then again, people say, “Well, the kids aren’t like that.” They love it. They eat this stuff up.
How has working with Super Holiday been?
I first worked with Super Holiday in 2006, I think. Jennifer has always been my go-to. They’re really great to work with really honest, and they don’t say, “Here’s what you’re going to pay. Here’s what you’re going to do, and this is the end of it.” They are they really cater for what you want to do based on your budget, because obviously some schools are funded better than other schools, and so they figure out something and find the best bang for our buck and make it really worth our while.
I remember last time we went, they shorted us some tickets. We had free breakfast at the hotel and we had to have these little vouchers or whatever. And they shorted us four of them. And Jennifer came out immediately, said, “Look, we’ve got this fixed. Here this is,” and called them and I mean she was right on it. And it was early in the morning. I mean, it was like 7 o’clock and she was all over it. So, that’s one thing I like Super Holiday. They’re honest people and when you find something good like that, you don’t want to go somewhere else.
The last thing we wanted to ask about was the Miss Mabry pageants, and how that’s worked as a fundraiser for you.
I’m actually a local pageant judge myself, since I’ve gotten involved in this stuff. It’s a really unique experience and it’s very much like band. I mean, these girls get to come up there and they get to travel their talents and show off and work for a common goal, and these kids are very collaborative. They’re cheering each other on, they’re backstage clapping, they’re whoo-ing and stuff. And it’s just really a big celebration, but it’s actually our biggest fundraiser of the year. It’s kind of a community thing. The winner will ride in the Christmas parade and all this stuff. So it’s a really good thing and plus it’s bridging that gap from middle school to high school because it’s a middle school pageant. It’s grade sixth through eight, so it feeds us and it’s a good way for us to raise money too.
Any final words for other educators?
Well, I will say this: Student travel is part of a bigger picture, in my opinion, of wrapping these kids up into something. They’re looking for something more than just a classroom they go sit in, so when you can offer stuff like that, it makes your program bigger. It makes the familial part of it bigger, and you don’t have to worry about when kids dropping out.