Marching through sunshine and rain: This Louisiana high school band finds its rhythm

A collective cheer rises from the yard lines to the top of the tower where Jeff Seighman and Eddie Hirst stand with their megaphones.

This final run-through marks the end of outdoor band camp — and what band kid wouldn’t cheer for that?

No more standing at attention in the early morning August sun. No more sweat-soaked shorts and T-shirts. No more counting the minutes between water breaks.

Then again, none of the 165 members of the Walker High Band of Legacy are complaining — or moving slowly, though Seighman and Hirst know they’re tired.

"Last time," Hirt said, signaling the drum major to clap out the count.

Seighman takes this as his signal to put down his megaphone and ready his hands for applause.

"Our first home game isn't until the third weekend in September, so it's going to be a long time until they hear someone clapping and cheering for them," he said.

And when the band finishes this last sequence, Seighman does just that — claps and cheers with Hirt following suit. They're not placating their students; they really mean it.

These kids had been dedicating their mornings to the practice field and their afternoons to the school's band hall since July 21. The daily grind has paid off after eight days, because the band is a good place going into football season. Is it perfect? No, but what is?

"The point is they're marching and playing better that when we started out eight days ago," Seighman said. "And they'll get better when school starts."

He dismisses the band for lunch, following the kids to Walker High's band hall, built in 2018 with design input from Seighman.

The facility is equipped with two instrument rooms that double as separate changing rooms for boys and girls before practice and on home game days.

Once school begins, after-school practice will be knocked down to twice a week, when Seighman and Hirst will add more sequences to their halftime show, readying it for both home football games and marching festivals.

"We have only one halftime show for the year," Hirst explained. "It's written in four parts. There was a time when we would write it in 60 charts, but we've scaled that back to 40. We started thinking about it, and we came to the conclusion that it's better to do something well in 40 charts than to do 60 charts, where we're having to learn the last part at the last minute."

Charts are grids on which marching shows are mapped out according to music phrasing. They used to print them on 14-by-17-inch paper and staple them together. Now they're all contained within the directors' iPads.

Confused? So were the freshmen on the first day of band camp.

"The freshmen had never marched and played at the same time, so that's the first thing we start teaching them," Seighman said. "We don't bring them in early. They show up with the rest of the band, and they start learning from the experienced players."

And on this final band camp day, separating inexperienced freshmen from seasoned upperclassmen is next to impossible. Everyone knows their place on the charts, and the transitions from one sequence to the next are smooth.

Behind the scenes

"Mr. Seighman, I need to go to the softball meeting, so I don't think I'll have time for lunch," a student says after intercepting the band director at the band hall door. "I'll be back after that."

"That's fine, you do what you have to do," Seighman said.

But a thought hits him. The student has been practicing in the sun since 7 a.m., and though she's been hydrating for three hours, she really needs to replenish vitamins and minerals that she's sweated out on the band field.

"Wait," he said, turning back to the student. "Go and get it done, but be sure to eat your lunch when you come back."

After 29 years of directing bands, six at Parkview Baptist School and 23 at Walker High, Seighman knows that high school life involves more than marching and music. Limiting practice time to twice a week allows students more time for other activities and work part-time jobs.

He also knows kids need to stay healthy while doing band stuff, which includes eating lunch and partaking of orange slices and Popsicles offered up by parent volunteers during marching breaks.

Hirst, meanwhile, holds the door open for lunchtime stragglers. He knows they're tired, and truth be told, he and Seighman are, too.

What their students don't realize is that getting back into the routine of band life during preseason is as much a challenge for the directors as it is for them.

"We make it a point not to think about band during June and July," Hirst said, laughing. "Then it starts all over again in August."

Hirst has been Walker High's assistant band director for 12 years, though Seighman doesn't refer to his cohort as an assistant.

"I think of us as co-directors," he said. "We work together on this."

Hirst replaced Seighman as Parkview Baptist's band director after Seighman accepted the Walker High job in 2003. When Walker High added an assistant band director position, Seighman immediately encouraged Hirst to apply.

The duo is simpatico. Both begin working on the marching music in the spring, where the process begins with the music.

"We both agree that the music has to be something we like, because we're going to have to be listening to it a long time," Seighman said.

This year, sunshine dominated Seighman's thoughts, specifically Sheryl Crowe's "Soak Up the Sun," then the 5th Dimension's "Let the Sunshine In."

But even Seighman had to admit that life isn't always sunshine, so he added a rainbow with Harold Arlen's "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and a little bit of rain with the title song for the movie musical "Singin' in the Rain."

Then Steighman and Hirst stepped back and realized they had a theme: Weather. And what could be more perfect in Louisiana?

In truth, weather is the band's rival of sorts. No matter how much planning goes into a week, the weather can throw off everything with lightning, heavy rain, hurricane threats and 104-degree days.

"We had yard lines marked in the new band room for when we can't go outside," Seighman said. "We just have to improvise."

The journey

Both Seighman and Hirst planned a career in music while in college. Seighman graduated from Southwood High school in Shreveport, where, as he remembers it, he was "always in the band room."

He was a drummer in the University of Louisiana at Monroe's "Sound of Today" Marching Band, then spent two years playing drums in a touring Christian band after graduation.

"Then I knew I had to get a real job," Seighman said. "I got a job as the choir director at Parkview. I didn't tell anyone about being in the band at first, but then they brought in Wade Sutherland to put the band together, and I offered to help him."

Meanwhile, Seighman had married, and he and his wife were living in Walker. So, when the Walker High band director position came open, he applied and was hired.

As for Hirst, he graduated from Sulphur High School in 1997, then LSU in 2002.

"I started out at Parkview, and I was blessed," Hirst said. "I was married, and we started having kids. And I said, 'Hey Jeff, if you ever need an assistant, I'd like to apply for it.'"

Now the two directors join forces leading the 165 kids in this band. They'll perform on the field and in the stands at five home games, then divide into two pep bands for away games.

Come spring, they'll break up into the concert band, symphonic band and wind ensemble.

But that's months away.

For now, Seighman and Hirst focus on the marching band — and cheering for their kids from the heart.