ORLANDO, Fla. — A high school band’s dreams of playing at The Most Magical Place on Earth were nearly squashed when someone broke into their trailer and took their instruments.
About a quarter of the Ashland High School musicians’ instruments were taken hours before their Walt Disney World parade performance, WKYC reported.
The theft was discovered when staff went to unload the trailer on Sunday morning, and the locks were gone.
“Our truck driver that pulls our (band) trailer just noticed something looked off and did some checking and noticed we had locks missing on our trailer that were definitely there when we loaded up,” director of bands and Music Department chair Marty Kral, told the Ashland Source.
“They took whatever they could grab quickly, flutes, clarinets, saxophones and some trumpets,” Michael Mecalf, owner of Mike’s Music Corner in Ashland, Ohio, told WKYC.
Kral didn’t tell the students what had happened until Sunday night, allowing them to have their scheduled trip that day to Disney Springs, the resort’s entertainment and shopping complex, the Source reported.
“Lots of emotions,” Kral said. “Some kids took things very hard, whether that be sorrow, anger or disbelief.”
“For a lot of kids, those instruments are part of who they are,” Metcalf said. “They’ve had them since fifth grade. It’s like losing a piece of yourself.”
Many of the stolen instruments were owned by the students, not the school.
About 160 students, staff and volunteers were on the trip, traveling 22 hours by bus from Ohio to Florida, the Source reported.
The band’s leaders reached out to the national chain Music & Arts to try to replace the instruments before the show.
Assistant band director Cameron Dietrich said it took two stores in the Orlando area to get rental instruments in the hands of the musicians.
But they were one instrument short. A saxophone was needed and thanks to Facebook, everything fell into place. Another band from Shelby County, Ohio, was performing at Disney and an Ashland staff member met with the parent of the student from another school to borrow the sax. The handoff came about midnight, hours before the performance.
“It was a really powerful moment of band families coming together,” Dietrich told WKYC.
The band marched down Main Street in Magic Kingdom, playing an appropriate song, “You’ve Got a Friend in Me.”
Police in Florida are investigating the theft, but no arrests have been announced.
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