SAN ANTONIO – Nearly $28,000 in damages is what the Churchill High School band says it is dealing with after playing in the rain this weekend.
“I’ve never seen that much rain at a competition before. It was a completely new experience to me,” said Corban Davis, a Senior for the Churchill band
“I couldn’t help but worry about all of that technology that was just getting drenched,” said Tyler Reich, a Junior for Churchill band
This Saturday, the Winston Churchill High School band performed at the Waco Band of Americas championships.
The competition brought new challenges like heavy rain, but the students didn’t miss a beat, qualifying for the final, which was canceled due to the weather.
Saturday’s performance led to extensive water damage to their equipment that the band director says they are not fully prepared for.
“Lots of stress, because the district will provide us some funds, our campus will provide us some funds, the student put in some fees at the start of the year to kind of offset some cost, but those are for repairs but not of this magnitude,” said Amanda Stevenson Band Director for Winston Churchill High School.
Now, with the damages, the rest of the season is in question for the band, including Thursday’s senior night and Friday’s competition at the Alamodome.
However, thanks to local schools donating some instruments, the band’s hopes of performing are still alive.
“We have over 40 instruments that have come to us today. We’ve calibrated their current instruments to sound really great at a certain location placement, and now that these are brand new, we’re going to start from scratch re-tuning; they’re great instruments, but they are borrowed,” said Stevenson.
Some donations will stay with the Churchill band, but others are on loan for the next few weeks. The donations are just a temporary fix while the band tries to raise money for repairs.
For more information on Churchill High School’s rain damage repairs, click here.