The Perry Band Olympics are an annual event held by Perry High School in order to gain funding for their band program throughout the year. This year, the event will be held on Feb. 17, not in their usual location, but at North Polk High School.
Following the tragic event that took place in Perry High School and took the lives of Principal Dan Marburger and 11-year-old Ahmir Jolliff, and had others injured, North Polk band directors Brandon Weeks and Collin Bell offered the North Polk High School building to host the 40th Perry Band Olympics.
Weeks, who worked at the Perry School District for a total of 3 and a half years, explained that he felt qualified enough to run the event at North Polk, as he had while at Perry. Furthermore he noted that Bell also had a connection to the school through his friend, who is the band director at Perry.
Weeks explained that if not for a school offering their building to Perry, the event would not have taken place at all. “I would like to think that even if I wasn’t there [Perry] our school would’ve still offered to host because it’s a terrible thing what they went through,” expressed Weeks, on him offering the building.
The idea was run through activities director Matt Eicchhorn ,who furthermore ran it through Principal Seth Poldberg, to which the response was “absolutely yes, let’s do it.”
The day of the Olympics will consist of over 800 different groups adding up to between two and four thousand people that will play for judges and gain feedback from judges Furthermore, awards will be given to students and schools participating from 8 a.m. to about 3:30 p.m.
All the donations and proceeds that the event gains throughout the day will go back into the Perry School District’s music program. The donation page that Weeks set up asking filled up within days and the volunteer page continues to be filled.
“It’s really cool to see how supportive lots of people are. Looking through the list there’s a lot of people that I do not know which means they’re from other schools which is cool because they’re under no obligation to do anything,” expressed Weeks. He then concluded “many people are hurt by what happened but they may not know how to help so this may be a small avenue in which they can.”
Weeks hopes people continue to volunteer for the event in order to continue helping the Perry School District.
