The Ritenour Marching Huskies will return to touring the elementary schools in the district to advertise joining band to kids before they reach middle school. 

The tours, which were last held in 2017, were meant to be something exciting for band students and elementary schoolers alike. 

During the tours, the band will spend the whole school day away from the high school. During this time they will come into some of the elementary schools during the school day and set up. The elementary schoolers will be called down for an assembly and will observe the marching band performing for about half an hour.

The tours aim to get kids excited about joining the band in middle school and joining marching band later on in high school.

The tours are also exciting for members of the marching band, like senior Acacia Helton, who got to experience them in elementary school. 

“I’m super excited to have tours come back because I’m really excited to see the involvement of band in other people’s lives, especially little kids because I had that inspiration,” Helton said. 

The tours have been absent for many years because of the sheer amount of class time they took up, but are returning this year. According to the director of the Ritenour High School Marching Huskies, Hadley Haux, the district is behind the decision to help the future of the band even though it takes them away from classes at the high school.

“Coming out of COVID they (The central office) view the benefit of this for maintaining interest in the program for current band members and helping to recruit students at the elementary level to join band,” Haux said.   

The tours this year are planned to take place on November 2nd and November 15th and will plan to visit all of the elementary schools in the district.