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Photos By: Heather Groenke
The Golden Griffon Marching Band is looking to make more trips in the near future, even though they weren’t able to go to Ireland this year.
“My ideal for the group is every four years having a big trip,” Nate Gay, director of athletic bands, said. “That would be something important to me because every student that would come through here would have a chance to go on a big trip. So when they leave college, they will have something nice to look back on. One of the reasons why I stuck with music is those types of things, like having a nice trip and having a good experience.”
Dr. Gay is entering his second year as the GGMB director. Before becoming a Griffon, he was the director of Emporia State University’s band. The GGMB has a few places that they were invited to play in next year. They have the option to go to Ireland and they were also invited to march at St. Joe Christian at one of their halftime shows.
Even though the GGMB weren’t able to go to Ireland, Dr. Gay felt they learned a lot preparing for the trip.
“It was a big learning curve getting ready for Ireland and going through those details, it just didn’t end up working,” Dr. Gay said. “We all are in a better place to do some more planning in the future for big trips.”
In the future, the GGMB also looks to add more people to the band. Dr. Gay is spending a lot of time recruiting high school students. His aim is to make the GGMB big in numbers but also wants the band to sound good.
“I am still trying to find the balance between the right number of people on the field and the amount of talent,” Dr. Gay said. “I would love to have a band the size of 150; that would be cool, as far as numbers go and with a school this size. I am out every week at different high schools talking to different directors trying to make my face known in the marching band world.”
Nate Gay has the GGMB on the right track and plans to take more trips and also add more members.