By Perry Schaible
Enquirer contributor

MOUNT HEALTHY _ The financially pressed school district here has drummed up enough contributions to send its marching band on the road for Friday night's football playoffs.

The band faced the possibility of being sidelined for the nearly three-hour trip to Jackson High School, east of Cincinnati, which required a passenger coach instead of a school bus.

Almost $400 short to secure the bus, Kevin Jobe, one of the band directors, went to work on a letter requesting donations from staff and parents. The letter, sent out Tuesday, brought in nearly $400 by midday Wednesday.

"People around here have been so faced with problems that they know how to solve them. The people who work here are used to kicking in," Jobe said.

Football coach Kurry Commins said the band is a big part of the football effort.

"I don't view it as a complete Friday night when everybody's not involved," he said.

The 62-member band won't perform a halftime show at the Division II playoff game, but will play as a pep band to support the team.

There are 38 members who perform with the competitive marching band.

Like the football team, the marching band had a successful year, scoring first or second in events at three large local competitions.

"It peps up the football team; they love us there," said senior Angie Brown, 17, a percussionist who's played in band since fifth grade. "It just brings the whole school together."

The band has been hurt by cutbacks in the school district after a fourth failed attempt at the passage of a levy.

The school district will make its fifth attempt for a levy on Tuesday.

When band directors Chris Huening and Jobe were told in August the marching band wouldn't travel to the high school's five away football games because the district couldn't pay the bus drivers to take them, it didn't come as a surprise. But it was disappointing.

"I'm a big sports fan. I love to go to the games and I love watching football so it was a mixed feeling," Huening said. "We had a lot of kids who have been to every away game since they got here."

The band got to play at the last two regular-season road games, thanks to a group of five volunteers from the district's transportation department.

Two bus drivers drove - free of charge - to the last two away games of the season and mechanic Jimmy Claire pulled the 24-foot equipment trailer.

"I just didn't think it was right to cut the band because it's a big thing to have the band at away games," said Claire, himself a Mount Healthy graduate and the father of two children in the district.

Claire, whose son Andy is a sixth-grade band member, said the music is a tradition at the football games he didn't want to lose.

"They fire up the crowd and show support for the football team."