Episode Details

Anthony Godfrey:
Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. It was a huge honor for the Herriman High School Choir, Orchestra, and Tour Concert Band traveling to Hawaii to share their music with military veterans.

On this episode of the Supercast, we talk with the talented students who represented the entire state of Utah with amazing performances at the National Vietnam Veterans Day Parade. They showed their pride and respect, honoring war Veterans in such a meaningful way with their music. It is an experience that will last a lifetime.

We're here at Herriman High School talking with Mr. Howden, our choir director, about a pretty unique experience that students were able to have over spring break. Thanks very much for taking time to talk with us.

Mr. Howden:
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Anthony Godfrey:
Tell us about this experience and how it became possible.

Mr. Howden:
So it was about April-May of last year and the company that runs the commemoration historic programs, they reached out to the Time Our Band director asking our marching band if they would come and help commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam Veterans coming home from the Vietnam War. And so the band director was thinking about it and he had talked to me about it, and our orchestra teacher, because once they saw that there was interest from the marching band they're like, "Oh you have a really great music department. We'd like all of you to come if you're interested." So we discussed it and decided that we would present it to the District and the School Board because it was a pretty big trip and we wanted to make sure that we had approval before we really announced it to students.

Anthony Godfrey:
Well, it was taking place in Hawaii.

Mr. Howden:
Yes.

Anthony Godfrey:
Policy only allows for travel within the intercontinental United States. So as a result you had to get that approval from the Board. They were enthusiastic about it and gave a thumbs up.

Mr. Howden:
Yeah, so I was a little surprised because it was more money than normally we would do for a tour.

Anthony Godfrey:
Right.

Mr. Howden:
And it was in Hawaii so I didn't think that they would give us the approval, but the School Board was enthusiastic about it. They were excited that we had gotten the invitation and that we would represent all the aspects of music from Herriman and be able to represent our District and the state of Utah.

Anthony Godfrey:
Right, the only school from the state, and there was one from each of the 50 states is that right? Mr. Howden:
So each state had someone that was invited, but if we had for example said no, Utah wouldn't have been represented. So there was actually only five different states with Utah being one of them that was able to come and represent. But we were one of the five.

Anthony Godfrey:
Outstanding. So tell me about– I know the approval was a long time ago so this has been a long time in the making.

Mr. Howden:
Yes, so we initially went to the School Board, I think it was May of last year. And then once we got the approval, we had a parent meeting so the parents could say yes they wanted to have us participate in this, and then we just moved forward