ESCANABA, Mich. (WJMN) – The Escanaba Marching Band brings the Eskymo pride that can’t be denied.

“The band is really all about giving spirit and encouragement to everyone in the stands and in the football stadium, all of our players,” said drum major, Grace Sviland, a senior in the marching band. “We are really the driving force for everyone to really encourage school spirit and excitement.”

It takes drive, passion and grit to compose a large group of high school student to move and make music, nut the Esky marching band has it.

“So really, we get all of our music at the end of the year before, so we can start practicing and playing the music over the summer to start preparing for the marching band season,” said Sviland. “And then every single summer, we have a week set aside where we can really focus on marching, playing our instruments, marching and playing our instruments at the same time and really moving as one uniform group. It takes a lot of time. We take aside this five days to seven hours each day to really put all of that into practice. We have great instructors come here and helping us so that we can really look prestigious and respectable.”

“We put a lot of work into it,” said senior trumpet player, Matt Kaven. “We work really hard making sure our form is good and it’s the little things. Like out on the field, if one person is just a little bit off, it shows. It really shows so we have a big attention to detail and we work really hard on making every note right, but every step correct also.”

After some pandemic years, the band is ready to get back and show their Eskymo pride.

“It’s all about town spirit for us,” said Kinsey Hughes, senior in colorguard. “The band is really part of the community. We have a lot of sponsors who help us out and we really help bring spirit to games, parades, things like that. When COVID happened, we kind of slowed down, shut down . The program definitely felt it and so this year is our first year back fully. Us seniors are the only people who have experienced normal marching band our freshman year, so nobody knows what it’s suppose to be like, so we’re really focused this year on bringing it back to what it was, that way it can be like what it needs to be.”

It’s a group where you’re welcomed like family.

“Marching band is a great opportunity for incoming freshmen to meet new people,” said Sviland. “I know that when I was a freshman, I was terrified of high school as much as I didn’t want to admit it. Coming in here, I was just welcomed with open arms and I made 60 new friends within a week.”