USA TODAY's Emily Bazar is reporting on the Grambling State University
marching bands preparations and trip to Washington for Tuesday's Inaugural
Parade. In her first dispatch, she writes:
"Get 'em up! Get 'em up!" yells Michael Hendrix, an assistant band director
at Grambling State University in northern Louisiana. His words are aimed at
about 200 members of the famed Grambling State University 
Tiger Marching Band, who are winding through campus on a gray and
nippy Friday afternoon as they get ready for Tuesday's Inaugural Parade.
Grambling will be among more than 90 bands, cultural groups and law
enforcement agencies to perform in the parade, which begins at the Capitol and
ends at the White House after Barack Obama is sworn in as the 44th president.
Just days before the big event, however, Hendrix isn't thrilled with his
crew's form.
Band members are supposed to be high-stepping, or "pumping those 90s," while
playing their wind and percussion instruments, which means they have to lift
their legs so high that their thighs are parallel to the ground. After more than
a mile of marching, band members are still stepping, but not so high.
"Suck it up! Suck it up!" Hendrix instructs. "You've got to condition
yourself."
The Grambling band, known for its high energy and precision, has
played for presidents, at Super Bowls and in commercials. In these last few days
before four buses depart campus Sunday to head for Washington, it's all about
details. Band directors are reminding male students to shave off all facial hair
other than mustaches, and female ones to remove nail polish and make-up. They
scold students who haven't memorized parade-route songs, which include Stevie
Wonder's Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours, which was
played frequently at Obama events during the campaign, and Ease on Down the
Road from The Wiz.
Band members, who will attend their last practice Saturday morning, are
fretting about the forecast for low temperatures on Inauguration Day. "I'm going
to bring a lot of undergarments," says Michael Sandusky, 24, a senior who plays
the piccolo. Sandusky, from Michigan, is planning to catch the eye of the newly
sworn-in president as he passes him on the parade route. "I'm going to do
something to make him notice me. Maybe a cartwheel or something," he says with a
laugh.
Sandusky, like most students here, supported Obama in the election. Grambling
is a historically black college, and band members say they're thrilled they will
perform for someone they consider a role-model.
"This is historic. This will never come again," says Terravia Cooper, 20, a
junior from Texas who plays the alto saxophone. "I can always say I was part of
the Grambling State University Tiger Marching Band when we were chosen to march
in the Inaugural Parade. I'm excited. It's also emotional."
