From the Georgia Southern Board:

August 11, 2009 in City
End of the show
EWU drops marching band to save money

Jody Lawrence-Turner
jodyl@spokesman.com, (509) 459-5593

When the Eagles fight song rings out at EWU football games this fall, it’ll come from loudspeakers or maybe hired musicians – not the student marching band.

The Eastern Washington University band, made up of 100-plus students, is a casualty of the poor economy.

“This was an agonizing decision on our part,” said Patrick Winters, music department chairman. “A school like ours, in Division 1 sports, should have a marching band. It’s part of the atmosphere.”

The university will save about $30,000, officials said.

Like officials at all of Washington’s public universities, EWU’s administrators had to make deep cuts in its budget. For 2009-’10, they have to cut $13.3million.

A pep band will continue to play at basketball and volleyball games. Creation of a football pep band is under consideration.


http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2009/au...-the-show/

Virginia was without a marching band for a number of years, including the last time Troy played at Charlottesville. Boring!

It's sad to sees this happen to my fellow bandsmen/women... The SOTS is very fortunate to have a great admin and chancellor who understands that the band is just as important as the football team...

We will be at every game this season in one form or another. Good luck to the rest of the Sun Belt bands! We need to keep the marching band A PART OF FOOTBALL! Let's not have another band suffer thanks to this poor economy.

MT band stronger than ever this year. 315 or so pre-registered according to a member on our message board