Local community rallied around Reading High School Rangers marching band and vaulted it to fourth place in MLive’s statewide “Top 10 Coolest Marching Bands” contest.
“We finished in fourth place with more than 86,000 votes, which for us, I mean, I never would have imagined that,” said Josh Sholler, Director of Bands and Choir at Reading High School. “A town of 1,050 and a high school of 200 kids, that’s nothing to scoff at for us.”
MLive hosted the contest Oct. 27 to Nov. 3, which entailed 169 Michigan high school march- ing bands competing for the top 10 spots. The 10 bands that received the most votes entered into the second voting phase of the contest, which ended Nov. 10. Reading received 7.91 per- cent of the votes in the second phase, according to MLive’s polls. Meridian Early College High School took first place with 38.84 percent of the votes, Ida High School took second with 36.25 percent of the votes, and Churchill High School took third place, with 8.69 percent of the votes.
Initially, Sholler was skeptical about how far his band would go.“The list included other small and medium schools, but mostly large, Division I high schools. I figured, ‘eh,’ it is a little bit of a long shot,” Sholler said.
But word spread quickly about the nomination.
“My kids were voting in class, and right away, it took off on so- cial media, Facebook especially,” Sholler said.
He attributed the band’s suc- cess in part to the support of the 1,589 members of the Facebook page called, “Reading thru the years,” which includes those who live or have lived in Reading, and alumni of the high school.
“It just goes to show the sup- port of the community for the school, and especially the music department, especially through the efforts of Josh Sholler,” said Chuck North, Reading High School’s superintendent.
North also attributed success to community members who called or emailed the school to request district-wide calls to homes to encourage more voting. He also said the city’s li- brary encouraged members who stopped by to vote.
“It was the talk of the town, to vote, vote, vote. We were always voting, it was insane. For a while we were in first place,” Sholler said.
Marching band student member Zachery Thatcher was confident that the community would vote as much as possible for the band to make it to the top 10 after the band received the nomination.
“I knew if we really wanted to make the top ten, we would have to really make voting a top priority,” Thatcher told the Collegian in an email. “Our small community really did beat in- credible odds to make it to num- ber four.”
Reading began in 102nd place, jumped to 25th by Friday, Oct. 30, and 7th by Sunday, Nov. 1, Sholler said. Reading is the smallest marching band in the Top 10. But Sholler valued the community recognition as a re- sult of the voting more than the ranking itself.
“The kids really loved it. I think my high school, my marching band, felt valued and saw the recognition of everyone in the school, the community,” Sholler said.
This is Sholler’s fourth year directing the marching band, a job he has had since he graduat- ed from Michigan State Univer- sity in 2012. In those four years, membership in the band doubled from 22 to 46 students.
“It’s a very special place that I can call home. I wouldn’t trade this close community of people for the world,” Thatcher said.