On Saturday, Oct. 3, Slippery Rock University hosted their 2026-27 High School Marching Band Day on campus.
Cara Campbell and Haylee McDonald spoke to The Rocket to discuss their insights on how the high school marching band day went overall.
Campbell is a freshman music education major who plays piccolo in the marching band; McDonald is a freshman early childhood and special education dual major who plays trumpet in the marching band.
“We pretty much just invite just a bunch of high schoolers grades 9-12 to the university. They played a bunch of stand tunes with us and we did a different halftime show so they could be included with it. We also played some of our stands during it as well,” Campbell said.
“We give them a bit of a taste as to what a college marching band would be like versus how different it is in high school,” McDonald added. “This event is kind of a persuasion to get high schoolers to stay in marching band.”
This year was both Campbell and McDonald’s first times serving as members for this event. However, for McDonald, a lot of people from her section expressed to her that they had gone to the band day in the past, and it really changed whether or not they were going to do college marching band.
Overall, both Campbell and McDonald thoroughly expressed that the high school band day was a success.
“There were a lot of people that said they were liking Slippery Rock even more by the end of it,” McDonald added.
“I definitely liked my little group of piccolos that came up from the high school. They were very nice and they were very outgoing. They very much enjoyed yelling during the game,” Campbell said.
“I think I just liked seeing people’s reactions change from the beginning of the day to the end of the day. Whereas all of my trumpets were shy and not talkative in the beginning, they all had bright smiles by the end,” McDonald said.
In addition, if there are any future high schoolers who are looking into consideration for high school band day events at colleges, both Campbell and McDonald encourage individuals to participate.
