8 minute read
Southmoore student wanted to be in band. His director wouldn't let a wheelchair stop him.
by Jenni Carlson
This article originally appeared in The Daily Oklahoman on November 3, 2022. It is reprinted here with permission.
Advertisement
Casey Hubbard needed the standard gear when he started playing in the marching band. Instrument. Uniform. Music.
But there was one other need unique to Casey: a seat belt.
Casey is in a wheelchair, and during a practice his freshman year at Southmoore High School, he nearly fell out of his chair. He was being pushed by Adam Mewhorter, the school’s director of bands. They made a super sharp turn, and Casey almost ended up on the ground.
“Yeah,” Mewhorter told Casey and his folks, “we’re gonna have to get Casey a seat belt.”
The Hubbards did.
“Ever since that happened, I’ve just had fun,” said Casey, now a junior, “and it’s been great.”
Many people recently became aware of just how great.
A recording of Casey and Mewhorter during a marching band competition was posted on social media last week, and the views now number in the millions. There have been tons of comments, too. Some have taken a wide view about the importance of ensuring access to students of all abilities. Others have said how great a teacher Mewhorter is and how cool the whole thing is.
None of that is wrong.
But for Casey and Mewhorter, it is a bit surreal, too.
After all, this is what they’ve been doing for almost three years. “This is just the way we operate,” Mewhorter said.
Casey Hubbard started playing trumpet in seventh grade.
His older brother had been in band, so Casey figured he’d give it a shot, too. He enjoyed his first couple of years, but beginning band involved lots of basics. Technique. Rhythm. Notes.
“It wasn’t too fun until I got into high school,” Casey said.
As a freshman, he was able to join Southmoore’s marching band. Like anyone starting something new, he was nervous, but there were also a few extra nerves because of his wheelchair.
Casey has used one all his life. He was
born with spina bifida, a birth defect in which his spinal cord didn’t develop properly. It affects people differently, but in Casey’s case, he has little feeling in his lower body and cannot use his legs.
Being in marching band, then, was a question mark for Casey.
“I didn’t know if I was going to be able to march,” he said.
“I didn’t know if I was gonna be able to be on the field with the rest of the trumpet section or the rest of the band.”
Mewhorter was more sure about Casey’s involvement.
Mewhorter has been involved with marching bands for many years - he’s been the band director at Southmoore since the school opened in 2008 - and he has seen other marching bands with students in wheelchairs. Often, they sit in one spot on the sidelines as the rest of the band marches on the field.
Mewhorter didn’t want that for Casey.
Casey didn’t want it either.
He is on an individualized education plan, or IEP, so before he started high school, he and his parents met with his teachers. Mewhorter asked Casey what his goal was, what he hoped to achieve.
“I want to be on the field,” Casey said.
“All right,” Casey’s mom remembers Mewhorter saying. “We will make it happen somehow, some way.” Adam Mewhorter helps to maneuver Casey Hubbard in his wheelchair while performing with the Southmoore High School Band.
Casey Hubbard’s first marching band season was in 2020, and that fall, COVID restrictions limited marching bands everywhere. There were fewer competitions and fewer opportunities to perform during football games.
But having a slower season gave Casey and Mewhorter a chance to experiment. How would they maneuver around the field? How fast could they go?
Will this actually work?
“And it did,” Mewhorter said. “It really, really did.”
During the first two years, Casey and Mewhorter would be on the field for certain blocks during the show, then they would come off the field and be more stationary. But this year, Mewhorter set a goal: never leave the field.
“We’re on that field the entire show,” Mewhorter said, “and he plays, and it’s been cool.”
Casey’s mom, Dawn, said, “He covers the whole field this year. He starts in one corner and ends up in the other.”
It isn’t necessarily easy for Casey or Mewhorter.
Casey has to deal with lots of bumps. Even though all of Southmoore’s performances have been on artificial surfaces, none of them have been smooth.
“It’s like 10 times harder to play,” Casey said.
Plus, there’s the added pressure of having your teacher and band director literally looking over your shoulder all the time. Casey admits it’s a bit nerve-wracking.
“But he knows my skill level,” he said, “so I’d say that he’s pretty understanding of how I play.”
Casey’s safety and the safety of the other players around him is Mewhorter’s biggest concern. Because Casey in his wheelchair moves differently from everyone else in the band - “We can’t stop and start the same way,” Mewhorter said - he has to be mindful of where he and Casey are in relation to the rest of the band.
Mewhorter has to strike a balance.
“I don’t want him to look like an afterthought. I want him to be a part of the show,” Mewhorter said. “But then also, you want to make sure that you’re safe.”
Mewhorter is often moving quickly to maneuver Casey into position. Not a run but close.
“I’ve learned that I’m not as young as I used to be,” Mewhorter said.
He laughed.
Another challenge comes at practice. As the band director, Mewhorter oversees practices, and even though a good chunk of time is spent with different instrument groups split apart running through the music, a significant amount of time is spent on the field. Formations must be practiced. Songs must be run.
Mewhorter will be in the stands for a while, getting a full view of the band, but then, he’ll head down to the field for a few runs with Casey.
“It is a little give and take,” Mewhorter said. “If I have any regrets at all, it would be that I don’t feel like I get enough reps (with Casey).”
But Mewhorter wouldn’t have it any other way. Even though he has several teachers who assist with the band, he wasn’t about to delegate the duty of pushing Casey.
“I can do it, and I think that’s important,” he said. “I am the child’s teacher.”
Casey Hubbard will never forget St. Louis.
Earlier this fall, Southmoore went to The Dome at America’s Center for a huge marching band competition. There were dozens of bands and thousands of spectators inside the mammoth stadium where the NFL’s Rams used to play.
“Just stepping on the field … I was like, ‘I can’t believe I’m here,’” he said. “I never expected to get the opportunity to be able to march in general, but to march in St. Louis, one of the biggest stadiums, it’s pretty crazy. Pretty fun.”
Southmoore made the finals at the prestigious competition for the first time in school history, then finished in the top 10.
Last weekend, it finished seventh at state.
Thursday night, the marching band will assemble for the last time this year during Southmoore’s final regular-season football game. The band won’t march - pregame and halftime will be taken up by senior night activities - but it will play from the stands.
Casey is sad to see the season end, but he is excited about what comes next, his senior year. The band is building off a big year, so there could be some fun stuff in store.
There’s even talk of a ramp for Casey that’s part of the show.
But regardless of how creative Mewhorter gets with Casey’s involvement next year, the most important thing remains his inclusion. Mewhorter knows the marching band offers an opportunity to Casey that some other extracurriculars wouldn’t.
“One of the cool things about music and a school band program is that we don’t have to have a set number of people on the field,” Mewhorter said. “If that’s what’s unique to us, we need to make sure that we’re living that.
“We don’t have a bench. So we need to, if we can, integrate everyone we can.”
Southmoore has done it so well with Casey that his folks are getting messages and calls from parents who have kids in wheelchairs. Some are friends from when Casey played wheelchair basketball. Others are strangers.
“How did you make this happen?” they want to know.
“We didn’t do anything,” the Hubbards reply. “It’s just what happened.”
For that, Casey and his family are forever grateful.
“Their positive attitude towards it is a big driving force for how well it’s gone,” his mom said. “There really hasn’t been too much worry about it.”
She paused.
“I mean, once we got the seat belt.” Adam Mewhorter, Southmoore High School (Moore, OK) Director of Bands is a Life Member of the Gamma Theta chapter of ΚΚΨ. He served as the 1997-98 Southwest District Vice President and the 1998-2000 Southwest District President.
Adam is a recipient of Kappa Kappa Psi's J. Lee Burke Student Achievement Award (1999) and the A. Frank Martin Award for Alumni Achievement (2018).
Casey Hubbard, right, plays with the Southmoore High School Band
Adam Mewhorter helps to maneuver Casey Hubbard in his wheelchair while performing with the Southmoore High School Band.
