High School Marching Band’s Instruments Stolen Before Disney World Parade

Members of an Ohio highschool marching band scheduled to take part in a Disney World parade was left scrambling hours earlier than their efficiency after a number of devices have been stolen from an tools truck.

The Ashland High School Music Department departed for its spring break journey to Walt Disney World on Friday, March 27, in line with native shops Ashland Source and WKYC. About 165 college students, workers and volunteers arrived in Orlando, Fla. the subsequent day, after a 22-hour bus journey.

On Sunday morning, the group departed for Disney Springs, the resort’s outside buying, eating and leisure district. During that point, Marty Kral, the director of bands and Music Department chair for Ashland High School, found somebody had tampered with the group’s tools truck. The locks have been lacking, and inside, a few vital variety of the band’s devices have been gone.

“The next morning we were supposed to perform at Disney and a huge amount of kids aren’t going to get that moment,” Kral tells PEOPLE. “We knew pretty clearly we weren’t just going to suddenly find everybody’s instruments.”

Determined to make sure everybody might nonetheless take part within the parade, band leaders got down to discover replacements regionally. Within hours, they reached out to Music & Arts, a nationwide retailer that companions with their native Ashland store. Kral and his assistant band director then traveled to 2 native music shops and made a number of particular person, month-long leases one after the other for every instrument.

Kral opted to attend till the group’s assembly on Sunday night to tell college students. It turned out {that a} majority of the stolen devices, principally small and simple to hold, have been personally owned by college students, versus school-owned.

“They all seemed just kind of violated,” Kral recollects. “Like someone did it as a personal attack to them, which I completely understand as a teenager.”

Staff labored by the evening to make sure every scholar had a brand new instrument, however one lone musician was nonetheless in want of a saxophone. After scouring the web, workers members have been in a position to pay money for one other Ohio-based band who have been on their very own journey to the resort. Although a lot of the band was scheduled to depart, one member’s household was extending their keep they usually occurred to personal the wanted woodwind.

Kral reached the lodge round 12:00 am on Monday morning and was in a position to decide up the instrument from the musician’s mom.

In the top, each scholar was in a position to take part in Monday’s parade, with about 20% of the scholars taking part in devices that they had by no means touched earlier than.

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“I would be shocked if anyone in the crowd that didn’t know what had happened would have any idea that these kids had not plated on these instruments before,” Kral says. “They just went for it and it was pretty darn good.”

The college students marched down Main Street USA whereas taking part in “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” from toy storydrawing cheers from the gang of onlookers.

After the efficiency, the group had two extra days to benefit from the parks earlier than their return to Ohio. Kral tells PEOPLE the division introduced their rented devices again with them, they usually plan to return them to their native music retailer when replacements can be found.