Standing tall at H.L. Bourgeois

Kyle Siddle is easy to spot in the crowd. He’s the kid in white with the tall hat that has a plume on top, which makes him appear taller than he actually is.

That was how he looked Friday, when HL Bourgeois met Terrebonne High on the football field. And Saturday he was walking just a bit taller, after scoring high in the drum major competition at an annual marching band showcase in Lafayette.

HLB’s was not the only local school band to perform. And Kyle wasn’t judged the best in show among the drum majors overall.

For the record, top honors went to Terrebonne High as best band in its class. Vandebilt made a sweep of best soloist, percussion and a category called “Auxilary.” South Terrebonne’s drum major got a 1st place award in a different category than the one HL competes in. Some top honors also went to Central Lafourche and to Morgan City High. Indeed, Central Lafourche overall is the reserve state champion, right behind grand champion Lafayette. And while HL Bourgeois did not win a first place as a school, its rating consistently was “Excellent.” Again, for the record, Terrebonne schools did exceedingly well as a group.

What matters sometimes is attitude, and a good attitude can be even more difficult to maintain when things don’t go so well. But Kyle is a kid with grace and style. I’d like to think that Kyle’s attitude is an example of what a lot of the young people who competed over the weekend brought along with their tubas, drums and trumpets.

Despite his personal victory, Kyle was bummed because his band-mates didn’t score quite as well.

“It was a good reflection on me but I felt bad for my band because they worked really hard,” was the first thing the 17-year-old senior said, when asked about his showing.

The Lafayette Music Company sponsors this event, which had 33 Louisiana bands competing. HLB showed respectably, mostly with second place scores, in a competition that is really tough.

Quiet and calm when first speaking, Kyle becomes animated when asked about the manner of drum-majoring, how it is done.

“Style is everything,” a suddenly animated Kyle said. “Our first movement was very, very harsh so I had to embody that harshness while our second movement was very smooth and moving and I had to embody that in my conducting. It’s just everything.”

A native of Rapides Parish, Kyle is a new addition to HLB – the other kids nicknamed him “Transfer.” But in less than a year at his new school, Kyle, who was never a drum major before, found his niche.

Kyle attributes any success he has as a drum major to the hard work and enthusiasm of the band overall, as well as his own desire to see them do well.

In his routine, he said, the choice of how to move and how to get the conducting point across is not about hot-dogging.

“I think about what the band is going to need,” Kyle says.

It’s an attitude that will serve Kyle well if he continues on his planned course of action, which is to attend Nicholls State University after graduation from HLB, and to become a music educator after that, a selfless career path to say the very least.

But it’s an attitude that represents a lot more, too.

At the football games everyone loves the players, and the mascots are fun. Cheerleaders and dance groups round out the entertainment, and this is what makes high school football games fun even for the non-sports inclined.

The HLB team didn’t do well Friday night. The victory went to Terrebonne, and both teams showed grace and displayed good sportsmanship. There were tremendous team efforts on both sides.

But on opposite sides of the field, in the bleachers, there was another kind of team-work going on, a team spirit displayed by both the bands. It was visible through sight but also discernable by the ear.

And it is precisely that type of team-work, putting the good of all first before personal glory, that Kyle’s quiet modesty reveals.

It is the kind of team-work we should all strive for. It is the kind of team-work that becomes all the more precious when you realize how easily it is exemplified by one kid from one bayou high school.

In a world that is rapidly going to hell, with unspeakable divisions in the national government and visible every day in simple conversations with otherwise nice people, that type of teamwork is sorely needed.

Because of Kyle and all the other kids like him, in this community it’s nice that you don’t have to look for it very far, after all.