While many students spent a recent Friday afternoon getting ready for the Highlander football game, the marching band members were playing a game of their own. 

Senior Drum Major Jonny Pickell last year started the tradition of playing a game of two-hand tag football before one of Baldwin’s home games — a tradition that has doubled in size by this year. 

Pickell said that last year’s game consisted of two groups of eight students, while this year had two teams of 13, a dozen spectators, and a pizza party. 

The band looks forward to the game and prepares ahead of time, senior color guard member Abby Horn said. 

“The band members all host practices and meetings, and even a draft, to make sure everyone is fully prepared,” she said. 

Pickell said he began leading this bonding opportunity to help everyone get closer. 

“I started it because I wanted there to be a better community aspect within the band,” Pickell said. “It gave people a reason to be excited to stay after school and allowed some new members to more easily integrate.” 

Senior Zaynah El Maghrabi, who also serves as a drum major, did not play in the games, but she and other band members cheered from the sidelines.

“I, alongside many others, acted as one of the football teams’ cheerleaders — we all chanted and sang. It was honestly so much fun,” El Maghrabi said. “We even got to do a mock halftime performance, which was my favorite part.”

The band’s game is played on the stadium football field. Horn said it was interesting to be on the field for football instead of marching or cheering from the stands.

“It feels like a fun change getting to play the game instead of watching it for once,” she said. “It’s just a cumulation of our Friday nights played out for fun.” 

The football game is just one of the ways that Pickell and El Maghrabi have contributed to the band, Assistant Band Director Emery Palmer said.

“Jonny has been organizing bonding events to take place before and after practices that have greatly boosted the morale of the band. Zaynah helps me run the marching band Instagram account (@bhsmarching), which boosts morale as well as shows other people what we are up to,” they said. “Pretty much anything that is going to make people enjoy band more, the drum majors are doing it.”

Horn said the drum majors are welcoming and approachable to every member of the band, including the color guard, even though the band and the guard have very different jobs and specialties. 

“Both drum majors work hard to set the tone of rehearsal; they do the same stretches and laps that we do – never shrugging off responsibility because of their positions,” she said. 

Pickell said his main goal this season is to create change that outlasts his time in the program. As someone who felt pride and was welcomed in the marching band, he wanted to make sure everyone else did too. 

Another way he tries to implement this sense of pride is by asking his fellow members to reflect. 

“Something I have tried to introduce as of late has been asking my fellow band members to be able to think of one action they are proud of at the end of each day of band,” he said. “I think every student should be able to feel proud of themselves at the end of the day, whether it be because of their performance or the way they treated their friends or family.”

Along with this reflection comes asking everyone to show appreciation for the band parents.

He said parents put in countless hours over the season – chaperoning, helping with uniforms, and working in the logistics crew.

El Maghrabi and Pickell said the members try to give back to the band parents when they can. El Maghrabi said that she saves snacks gifted from other bands to give to the Baldwin band parents as a way to show her appreciation.

“It makes me really glad that our members have personally stepped up on this in order to ensure that the band parents are being treated just as amazingly as they treat us,” she said. 

Pickell has also implemented small projects to give back. 

“A few student leaders and I have begun doing little things to thank the band parents,” Pickell said.  “(We) buy them donuts for our early morning competitions and help them load and unload the trailers.”

Palmer said the drum majors have exceeded expectations for the season. 

“They are doing such an amazing job and they should be incredibly proud of what they are doing as drum majors,” they said.

El Maghrabi has high hopes for the rest of the season, she said.

“Our season is going so extraordinarily well this year. Scores wise, we are in such an amazing place — a better place than we have been in during any of the post-Covid years,” El Maghrabi said. “Overall, everyone in the band has grown so much since the beginning of the season and I cannot wait to see how far we can push ourselves before our season ends.”