Marching Royals get "glammed" up for Fall season

• Cool blue

Woodbury High School’s marching band unveiled their new uniforms Friday during the Royals football home game against Park. The marching band raised funds for its “Glam the Band” effort to purchase traditional uniforms. Staff photo by Patrick Johnson.

Talk about it

The 80-member Woodbury Marching Royals was “glammed up” during Friday night’s football game against District 833 rival Park High School with the debut of their new uniforms.

“It just gives us a greater sense of an official group, as opposed to just the band in the stands,” said Royals band director Brent Comeau.

Being able to show off the new uniforms has been a year-long process for the three-year-old marching band with their “Glam the Band” campaign.

When Comeau took over as band director last year, he said he noticed something missing for this very young marching band.

“I walked in, and it was this very young marching band growing,” Comeau said. “With this growing marching band, isn’t it about time we get some real uniforms — uniforms would be a really visible sign that we’re growing, we’re on the move, ‘watch us here we go.’”

From t-shirts to decked out

Previously, the marching band had been performing in track jackets, t-shirts and shorts since the marching band had been inactive until 2007.

Band members weren’t too disappointed they didn’t have any uniforms initially; in fact they took a lot of pride in their lack of uniforms, Comeau said.

“These kids were actually really proud that they were the marching band that didn’t wear the funny old uniforms,” he said. “There are so many schools out there that still wear the heavy, wool, Big 10-style uniforms that were purchased when the school was built — they’re old uniforms, they’re smelly, they look funny, they have weird fuzzy hats and that kind of stuff — they were cool because they were the band without uniforms.”

But after the marching band started to grow in numbers, and in popularity, it was evident that having official uniforms would give them more of a sense of identity and seem more official.

A full version of this story, along with additional photos, is available in the Wednesday, Sept. 16 print edition of the Woodbury Bulletin.

Tags: high schools, woodbury high school, education, royals, marching, band