COLUMBUS, Ohio — Spencer Hurt has been a member of the Pickerington Central Marching band for four years, but this one is different.

 

What You Need To Know

  • Pickerington Central Marching Band one of the best in Columbus

  • Still pushing through season with protocols and limitations

  • Students thankful for the opportunity to compete still

 

 

This year, the senior is leading the group as field commander.

“It’s a stressful job, but it’s definitely worth doing,” said Hurt.

Hurt has the challenge of leading one of Central Ohio’s most renowned high school bands, which has performed in the Rose Parade, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, at college and professional football games, and for various presidents.

The band will add to its history this year, but for a different reason.

“Back in March, we had the expectation that we would hardly have a band camp at all or a season but it’s kind of blown away my expectations about what we were able to do this season.”

That’s in part thanks to Nate Stowe who has been the marching band director for the last seven years.

“I can recall a Zoom meeting we had with all the staff and we decided to set reasonable expectations for the season and make sure the kids had an experience if the opportunity presented itself,” said Stowe.

And while there were plenty of protocols and limitations this year, Stowe and his tigers have been marching forward.

“Just making sure we didn’t lose as many steps along the way in developing the newer members of the band.”

Newer members like sophomore Ashley Telfer, who knew there would be high expectations.

“I heard that we had a pretty good reputation and that we were you  know highly praised you know by a lot of other bands and especially at contests like that so I was pretty excited to be  a part of it,” said Telfer.

Even during this unprecedented season, she says one of her favorite parts about being in the band is the community. As for Hurt, he’s thankful to be involved in marching tiger history.

“My favorite part is the opportunities we’ve had we’re a pretty big band by you know standards of the towns around us and we get to go to California, we’re supposed to be in New York right now but yeah the opportunities that are awarded to us are pretty significant,” said Hurt.