Elkmont High School is adding something new to its entertainment for football this season.

The school is organizing a Celebration Band that will include band alumni and parents of current students who played in their high school bands.

“I think it was just one of those things after a boosters meeting that we thought that we could do,” said Elkmont High School Band Director Mark McChristian. “We’re putting together a pre-game show for homecoming on Sept. 29.”

McChristian said former members, parents who played and current band members will join to make one massive marching band during the pre-game homecoming show.

The first rehearsal for the Celebration Band will be from 6-8 p.m. at the Elkmont High School band room on Sept. 7. Instructors Joy McChristian and Wes French will help to ready the Celebration Band for their homecoming debut.

The Celebration Band has had a huge response.

“We have Norma Thomas Goodin, the very first drum major that we had at Elkmont in 1966 playing in the band and a majorette from 1969,” said Keila Berzett.

Others who make up the Celebration Band include teachers, school employees, parents, and alumni.

The band’s drum major will be Rhonda Spry, mother to Elkmont’s current marching band drum major, junior Blake Spry.

“We’ve gotten calls from as far away as Nashville,” said McChristian.

Right now, the band has about 65 alumni and parents who have signed up for the Celebration Band, but they would like to have even more.

“I would love to get 100,” said Kelia Berzett, a 1982 Elkmont High School graduate and organizer of the Celebration Band.

She said the Celebration Band is a program builder for the band, for potential future band members to see their brothers, sisters, and parents marching and playing in the band.

“I think it’s a good thing for younger children to see their parents out there, especially in a time where parents and children don’t talk as much,” McChristian said.

He said the Celebration Band is something they are thinking about doing about every five to 10 years because it is a fun way for people to reunite and have a really good time.

“So many of the greatest memories I have, from when I was younger, was when I was in band,” he said.

There is a $10 fee to cover the cost of T-shirts that the Celebration Band will wear and people are welcome to join the band up until the homecoming show.

“We go on the field Sept. 29. So if they want to play, come on,” said McChristian.

“This is not a show that’s going to competition. We’re just wanting to have fun.”

The Celebration Band is just that, a celebration of the alumni and band players of the past, he said.

“If they had not put their time and hard work into it, the program would not still be here,” he added.

McChristian said that the band boosters would like to put together an alumni association in the future. He said if an association was formed, it could help out the band. Alumni would be kept posted on the activities and events with newsletters

For more information on the Elkmont High School Band, joining The Celebration Band, or booster’s club, call Berzett at 423-3972 or 423-5754.