Thunder in the streets: Sexton revives homecoming parade

Once a national powerhouse among high school bands, Lansing’s Sexton High School band has weathered some lean years, but this Friday’s Homecoming Parade will bring the thunder back to the streets of Lansing’s west side.

A newly revived homecoming parade bids to rekindle the old Sexton swagger, with returning alumni from as far back as the ’70s, marching and playing along.

The parade will make a big circle through the west side, starting in the Sexton parking lot, heading east on Washtenaw Street to West Street, north to Allegan Street, west to McPherson Street, north to Michigan Avenue and back west to Sexton’s Edward Madjeski Stadium.

Kenny Turner, a 1970 Sexton grad, is helping to put Friday’s parade together.

“I heard that band every day,” he recalled. “It was just precision. Duane Corbett was a stickler. Every, note, every step had to be right on point. He was an amazing man who was ahead of his time.”

During its glory years from 1956 to 1980, under band director Duane Corbett, the Sexton band played for presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Gerald Ford, at World’s Fairs in New York and Seattle and at a Detroit Lions’ Thanksgiving Day game.

The band played in Mexico City, Dallas, Honolulu and even played the annual “Pigs vs. Freaks” (cops vs. hippies) football games at MSU.

“You could hear that band practice six to eight blocks away, sitting on your porch,” Turner said.

Sexton alumnus Randy Roost, class of 1977, will be among about a dozen old hands marching with the band Friday.

“It’s a chance to relive some of the glory days,” he said.

More than 40 years since he graduated from Sexton, Roost still calls Corbett “Mr. Corbett.”

“Mr. Corbett had what he called his ‘routine of musical precision’ drill,” Roost said. “Halftime shows were full of geometric patterns, pinwheels, diamonds — we were always marching.”

Roost is by far the oldest of the alumni to join the fun, but he’s been keeping trim and playing plenty of trombone over the years, and felt warmly welcomed at last week’s rehearsals.

“They’re really gracious,” Roost said. “This is their thing, their time to be part of the band, and they’re a really good group of kids.”

A panoply of community groups will take part in the parade, from the Sexton band to the Little Reds from Riddle Elementary, Pam’s Academy of Champions Choir and newly minted Lansing Police Chief Daryl Green. The grand marshal will be Wanda Sulskis, a 93-year-old Sexton alumna from the Class of 1943.

The band will perform the school’s fight song and a robust arrangement of “Before I Let Go,” by Frankie Beverly and Maze.

The song’s message about hanging on through good and bad times isn’t lost on Homecoming Parade Chairwoman Mitzi Allen, a 1968 Sexton graduate.

As enrollment declined at Sexton and music programs were cut from Lansing’s middle schools, the band shrank from more than 75 strong to about 30 members.

In 2016, a 1981 graduate of Everett High School, Josh Hicks, got the band marching again. Friday’s parade promises to take the band’s revival to the next level.

“The song befits the struggles of the band, but through it all, the Big Reds always rise to the top,” Allen said.

There was only one bump in the run-up to Friday’s festivities. In its glory years, the Sexton band was famous for its “spinning drums,” four cylindrical blurs of silver and white that had to be seen to be believed. (Even without sound, the sight is worth checking out in an old Super 8 reel posted on YouTube.)

The spinning drums are still around. Everett High School band director Penny Pilonczuk, a Sexton band alumna, plans to get the drums into the program at Everett, a performing arts magnet school, but it’s hard to find anyone who knows how to play them.

“It’s very complicated and tough,” Roost said. “You strap on 40 pounds of drum and you have to hit the drum, in time, with enough force to keep it moving.”

Turner hopes that the hoopla generated by Friday’s parade might get the attention of someone who can pass the secret of the spinning drums to a new generation.

Sexton High School Homecoming Parade

Fri., Oct. 4, 6 p.m.

Begins in Sexton High School parking lot

102 McPherson Ave., Lansing