Thursday, March 29, 2018

Page 1

Look inside for special offers from Kroger. Find the insert in the IDS print edition each Thursday. Thursday, March 29, 2018 | Indiana Daily Student | idsnews.com

The

PRIDE of

PAOLI In a town known for intolerance, the Paoli Junior-Senior High School marching band was a place where the misfits belonged.

Words by Laurel Demkovich lfdemkov@iu.edu | @LaurelDemkovich

Multimedia by Hannah Boufford hbouffor@iu.edu | @hannahboufford

INDIANAPOLIS – The lights hanging high above the gymnasium flickered on, turning from purple to yellow to bright white. Groans and yawns echoed from every corner. Some students slid deeper into their sleeping bags. Keegan Anderson, 17, walked in wearing pajama bottoms and a letterman’s jacket, carrying his mellophone. He’s short and thin with a growing goatee. Keegan, a senior, was one of the longest participating members in the Paoli Junior-Senior High School marching band; he started out as a prop helper in sixth grade. In a few hours, the band would march onto the field at Lucas Oil Stadium to compete in the Indiana marching band state finals. The group spent the night at an Indianapolis middle school not far from the competition. The band was two hours from home, far away from the town that became infamous within the last year for housing two well-known white nationalists. But that’s not what today would be about. There was talk of Paoli taking first. They finished just tenths of a point away from first place the weekend before at semi-state. They were too nervous to think about it. Keegan walked up to someone still bundled under her covers. He set his foot atop the air mattress, pulled his instrument to his lips and played a military wake up call. Da DAH da da da, Da DAH da da da... A band booster shouted: “Hey, horn line! We’re warming up in five minutes!” It was 4:52 a.m. Sleep would have to wait.

Photos by Emily Berryman eberryma@imail.iu.edu | @Ember_Otter

* * * One thing unites this southern Indiana town more than anything else: the junior and high school marching band, the Pride of Paoli. Outside the city limits, “Pride” and “Paoli” conjure a less flattering image. In the last year, two residents well-known in the Traditionalist Worker Party, a white nationalist group, brought national attention to Paoli and its 3,600 residents. By the time PBS, the Herald-Times and countless other news outlets left, Paoli could have been mistaken for a town filled with racists. But Paoli, as residents would say, is more than two white nationalists and a few Confederate flags. It’s a place with a ski resort, a bar called Pinky’s and nearly 20 churches. It’s a town where the high school football stands are filled on Fridays, and the talk on the town Facebook page is about how long the line is at Taco Bell. And it’s a place where, one weekend every November, many residents travel to Indianapolis to cheer on their marching band. Between learning the notes and the marching charts, Keegan and the other band members were learning about acceptance and unity in a town with a reputation for division.

“This isn’t who we are.” Keegan Anderson, 17, on the white nationalists in Paoli

They marched all day in the summer heat during band camp and spent 12 or more hours a day together at Saturday competitions in the fall. They fought over who got to sleep in the best corner of the gymnasium, and they sang top-40 songs on the bus. They grew up together. In a town known for intolerance, the band was a place where misfits belonged. At the end of the day, it wasn’t about whom they marched next to, but whether they could march in step. * * *

Senior Travis Mefford started off the show alone on the field as a mountain climber at the beginning of his journey. Director Bill Laughlin said the show symbolized all the obstacles a climber has to overcome to reach the top.

The handout for the trip encouraged them to dress up for “the city.” People don’t wear flip-flops, shorts or T-shirts, it read. Girls straightened their hair. They shoved their feet into heels and zipped up skirts and dresses. Keegan put on khakis and dress shoes. Keegan and the other 69 members of the band piled onto the bus. Keegan took a seat in the back with other seniors. Then came the drum major — Maggie McGowen, 17. She wore a dress and a scarf. From atop her conductor’s podium, Maggie saw everything come together. She broke it down like this: The flutes were bubbly and crazy. The clarinets — they’re hardworking and serious. The percussionists — funny. The saxophones and mellophones were clever.

The trumpets? “Where do I begin with the trumpets?” If the band wanted to do well, each section had to balance and blend with the others. Unlike some other sports or competitive events, it took every single person in the band working together. No one was on the sidelines. And if one person missed a note or a step, the whole show was thrown off. As the buses left Paoli Junior-Senior High School, Keegan stared at the window and watched as they passed sign after sign sprouted along the route, even miles out of town: “TAKE STATE PRIDE,” “WAY 2 GO P.O.P.,” “WE ARE PROUD.” After the two-hour ride north, Keegan and the band members shuffled off the buses and into Circle Centre Mall. It was a tradition for the band to spend a few hours at the mall the night before state, and afterward they’d spend the night on the floor of the Perry Meridian Middle School gymnasium.

“Remember what this song is about. What does being a member of the Pride of Paoli mean to you?” Band director Bill Laughlin, 57, on “Cadillac of the Skies”

Couples broke off to grab pretzels at Auntie Anne’s, and small groups meandered through Hot Topic. Keegan met up with his boyfriend, who lives near Indianapolis. The two walked through the mall hand-in-hand. Keegan was Homecoming King this year, but no one would ever know unless he told them. He sat next to a rookie on the way home from semi-state, something out of character for a senior. He wore flipflops to practice once, and band director Bill Laughlin made him march around barefoot in the snow. In Paoli, Keegan and his boyfriend can’t walk hand-in-hand through the town square. It’s a town set in its traditions, where nearly every face looks like the other. Paoli’s motto: the Heart of Hoosier Hospitality. The town has yearly festivals, a courthouse built in 1850 and a full-service gas station. Everyone knows everyone, word travels fast, and no one questions how things have always been done. Keegan didn’t think much about prejudice or racism growing up. Some people in Paoli don’t even think it still exists. Keegan first learned about the white nationalists in Paoli by scrolling through Twitter. He saw a tweet from J.K. Rowling mentioning Paoli and its white nationalists. “This isn’t who we are,” he thought. * * * Keegan’s friend Livia Sullivan, 17, first learned about the white nationalists in her sociology class. Livia played the saxophone. She was the caretaker in the group. If students couldn’t get a ride, Livia picked them up. But she was also not afraid to scold them if they weren’t focused or doing their job. Livia became aware of race in fourth grade when her parents adopted two children from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. When they first got here, her brothers – now 8 and 10 years old – stuck out. More than 96 percent of Paoli’s population is white, according to U.S. Census data. And as they grew up and started school, kids would ask about where they came from or why their skin was so dark. They’d come home crying. “There’s nothing wrong with you,” she would tell them. “You’re a normal kid.” In fall 2016, Livia’s sociology teacher showed a PBS NewsHour segment from October 2016 in class: “Why white nationalists hear a political ally in Donald Trump.” She watched as Matthew Heimbach and Matthew Parrott, both Paoli residents at the time, espoused their vision of a racially pure nation where white people and black people are separated and Jewish people are exiled. She heard Heimbach, founder of the Traditionalist Workers Party who played a role in the Charlottesville, Va. “Unite the Right” rally, criticize globalization, claiming white Americans had been abandoned. She saw Parrott give a tour of Paoli, pointing out abandoned buildings that used to be businesses. Growing up, Livia had always seen a few Confederate flags, but she never thought anyone could believe something like this. As she looked around, she saw classmates staring in disbelief. SEE PAOLI, PAGE 2


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