Mixing Melodies With Memories: Fulshear Takes On Fort Bend County Fair Parade
By: Lisa Wang
On Friday, Sept. 27, Fulshear Band, Storm, and Color Guard marched into the heartland of Richmond, Texas beside the historic Fort Bend County Courthouse to help initiate the Fort Bend County Fair Parade. Stretching just over two miles long, the fight song rang clear throughout the compact streets among 200 other entrees.
Band director Mr. Andrew Lee described the importance of the parade to the band.
“It’s a really great opportunity for us to showcase what our band kids do. It’s always really fun,” Lee said. “One of my favorite parts of the parade is getting to see all the little kids who are either clapping along with or like dancing to when the band comes marching by. (…) Maybe it’s because I’m a dad, but it’s just really special to get to see those kids smile, a couple kids want to high-fives, and it’s really fun for our band kids to kind of feel like rock stars for a little bit as they go marching by people.”
Storm member Valentina Ciobotaru described why the parade is important to her, despite it being the first year she attended as a member of Storm.
“(It) symbolizes a tradition – everyone getting together every year,” Valentina said. “You represent your school; it’s about school spirit.”
To prepare for the parade, the band begins building the fundamentals over the summer, before the fall school season begins.
“So as far as the routine that we do for parades, a lot of it starts back in July, but we don’t really work on our specific parade performance routine or whatever you’d call it,” Lee said. “We typically are focused on marching fundamentals and drum lines, working on cadences that we perform. The music that we perform is our fight song, so it’s a song that we’re well trained on. But for the parade, we’re really just drawing on the skills that we’ve already developed and using those in a different way.”
With large public events like the Fort Bend County Fair Parade, anxiety plays a major role leading up to the event. Valentina has developed a magnitude of techniques to help her prepare and minimize the stress.
“I just enjoy it with all my friends – we do it together,” Valentina said. “Teamwork (helps me get over anxiety). I share my thoughts with my friends, talk about ‘oh it’s going to be okay, we can do it together’. I review it so I have all my dances solid, so I don’t forget.”
Past the jitters, the overall experience was positive for the group.
“(I enjoy) watching the parade. Everyone with their floats, seeing crowds of people – everyone getting together,” Valentina said.
As for the band, everything also went swimmingly and they were warmly received by the crowd..
“I thought it went really well. The band seemed to be really well received. I think the kids had fun doing it,” Lee said. “It’s always a pleasure to get to perform for anybody, but it’s especially a pleasure to get to perform with The Storm and with our color guard in front. And so getting to show off what Fulshear is, I think was really fun.”
Attending larger public events are powerful, confidence-boosting experiences that show students the impact that they can have on their community.
As Lee said, “I think that they matter because I think it shows all the hard work that our kids do in all the activities that are part of the parade, FFA, cheer, band, dance team, color guard, drumline. I think it shows all the amazing gifts that our kids have and all the talent that they possess. It gives them an opportunity and a platform to kind of share that gift with other people.”
