Last weekend, the Wyoming High School Activities Association (WHSAA) held its annual State Marching Band Festival in Casper. Hundreds of kids from around the state gathered to perform routines that they had honed for months.
The kids did great. Long hours of practice—both individually and together—paid off. Six bands took home a superior rating. Others captured accolades in five categories: music, marching, winds, percussion, and guard.
Without taking anything away from the kids, we need to say something about the adults. At least one routine raised eyebrows and hackles. Kelly Walsh Marching Band, the most acclaimed band of the weekend, performed a program that caused more than one observer to voice public concerns.
The routine began with moans—not from the audience, but from the loudspeakers: atonal moans that unmistakably evoked images of pagan worship. As students brought out props, the appearance of an altar confirmed the meaning of these haunting sounds. And when the band took the stage, it knelt in a semicircle around it.
As the music started, the entire band raised hands in prayer, bowed with foreheads to the ground, and swayed in enchanted rapture before an image of an eclipse. Disturbing, to say the least. But it grew more so.
On closer inspection, the color guard had blood-like makeup smeared on cheeks and foreheads. Their white and black flags were exchanged for sun-yellow then, finally, to blood-red. The percussion crescendo came to a frenzy while the band instrumentally recreated the atonal moans that were thematic of the routine.
The altar, which had been moved to the side, now was repositioned front and center. The band stood in front of it, and then split to give up one of its clarinetists to the grasping hands of the blood-smeared color guard. She was frog-marched up the altar stairs, ceremonially tied to the altar, and stabbed in the heart.
Her blood-curdling scream launched the band into its finale. And the routine came to its climax as her lifeless body lay crumpled on the altar.
Let me say, again, the kids performed their parts exquisitely. I have no criticism of them. But as I watched this disturbing routine, I could not help but ask myself: Who were the adults in the room? Who wrote it? Who choreographed it? Who selected the music? Did anybody, anywhere along the way, question its propriety?
Responsible adults must ask such questions because it’s unrealistic to leave it to the kids.
The director, Brent Rose, is one of the most popular teachers at Kelly Walsh. His position as band director only increases his following. Music, with its evocative power, has that effect on anyone, but especially youth. By the time you dangle the allure of membership in Wyoming’s top marching band, that power is overwhelming. How many kids could resist it?
Only the most naïve could imagine that high school students were in any position to question their teachers. That is why everyone who wields such emotional power over children should be especially mindful of their potential for coercion. Those who supervise the educational atmosphere especially owe it to the children to protect them from manipulation.
Did the principal, or the activities director, or anybody else with supervisory responsibility discuss the propriety of the routine? If so, those discussions should be documented. The Natrona County School Board and the WHSAA owe it to concerned citizens across the state to take them seriously and to investigate who signed off on this routine and what they were trying to say.
The plot was simple enough. A primitive people moves from the irrational and emotive worship of an eclipse to giving up one of its own to bloody human sacrifice.
Was it a glorification of human sacrifice and pagan religion? Or was it meant to paint religious people as benighted Neanderthals whose religious fervor inevitably leads to murder? Does a state-run school have any business promoting either message? Watch the routine and judge for yourself.
I, myself, am most immediately concerned with the tender hearts of the students. I tried to imagine the conflicted feelings that an Atheistic, Buddhist, or Jewish student might have if membership in the state’s most acclaimed band required them to act out Christ’s crucifixion. Who would voice their concerns?
Now consider the queasiness of those kids who were asked to worship an eclipse, and to participate in giving up a classmate to mock sacrifice. Who is responsible to voice their concerns?
Ultimately, we are all responsible. We should not give our kids over to a paganized culture to fend for themselves. We can start by pressing the administrators of Kelly Walsh for some serious answers.
Jonathan Lange is a Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod pastor in Evanston and Kemmerer and serves the Wyoming Pastors Network. Follow his blog at https://jonathanlange.substack.com/. Email: JLange64@protonmail.com.
