If you have ever seen the Sparkman Band travel over the past decade you will notice a large number of volunteers and vehicles that move the necessary equipment for the band to perform. The construction and organization of this operation did not happen overnight and can be attributed to the hard work and dedication of many parents over the years.
One parent that was present and responsible for most of this project is Johnnie Paul. Below is a record of Johnnie’s work and growth of our transportation department.
Sparkman Band Transportation History
By Johnnie Paul
For you Sparkman Band peeps that do not know the history of the band trailer, then I shall share it today. Part one: In 2008 The Marching Senators were at the Hoover Invitational. Late in the evening all of pit crew members were standing around waiting. The current trailer we were using was parked in rows with lots of other trailers and trucks from other bands. However, a couple rows over I could see vast amounts of light lighting the dark parking lot. I had to investigate. The light was emanating from one of the coolest band trailers I had ever seen. The trailer was owned by Siegal High School from Murfreesboro, TN. It was amazing the way they had it set up. We were so thrilled with it, that my wife and I planned a trip after marching season had ended to go see the Siegel trailer. A friendly call to the school, and they were honored to let us take a tour of their trailer. Here are the images from that journey…
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Part two: Continuing with the story of the Marching Senators band trailer… To know the history, is to know where we started from. When I took over the responsibilities of transportation and equipment chairs in 2008, the band was using an old black 48′ trailer. I do not know all the names involved, but the trailer and Sparkman logos were donated by some wonderful families. However, the trailer was very high off the ground, and it had two very heavy 14′ long aluminum ramps. Loading and unloading this beast was a nightmare at times, and dangerous. In fact, when I pitched the idea of buying a new trailer to the booster board, I included the story of Mrs. Weis, who while pushing a marimba up the ramp, fell off one side of it. She was not hurt bad, maybe a little bruising was all, and the instrument was not damaged, but the incident helped prove a point I was trying to make, and that was that the trailer was unfit for use in the band… it was not a matter of when someone was going to be seriously hurt, but when. Here are some of the images I have of the old trailer…
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Part three: Many of you parents that have fully volunteered with the band know what I am talking about when I say that we were consumed by the band. After the 2008 marching season ended, my wife and I, still high from being “consumed by the band” did a lot of research trying to find a trailer similar to the Siegel trailer. We knew what we wanted, it was a matter of finding it. Of course this was the holiday season, and nothing be could done until after the new year. So with fresh images from our trip in November of 2008 to visit Siegel, we scoured the net in search, of what would become the band trailer the Band has today. We found the trailer at a lot in North Carolina, from a little dealer called Trailer Source. Known only as item# W151, I present “Dorcey” as she was viewed on the trailer Source website…
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Part four: In 2009 I made another pitch to the board members, Specifically, the booster president Dave Weis. I sent them images of the trailer, and I told them that after talking with Trailer Source, that this trailer was exactly what the band needed. The price was right at a $4500 as I recall. But, there was no way to know for sure if this was a good buy, unless we could see the trailer up close and personal. It was decided to let myself, and then current board member, Alan Nistler (3rd VP at the time), make the trip to Trailer Source in North Carolina and view W151. Alan, a good friend of mine, and I took off on a Friday evening on what would be a 1,000mi 24-hour round trip journey. Alan and I shared great deal of good conversation coupled with some quick fact finding. Here are the images from that day…
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Part five: Once we purchased W151, we finally get her delivered. Now we had to look the trailer over and get us a game plan. Here is what we had to work with in the summer of 2009. The trailer was divided in two by a wood & chain link partition. It would seem that the post office in North Carolina stored used tires in the front half, and new tires in the second half. The rings from the stored tires could clearly be seen stained to the floor, and I believe are still present to this day…
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Part six: with the partition down, we evaluated what wall boards needed replacing, and then gathered some paint, primer and urethane sealer. Many parents worked tireless hours getting the inside done ready… these old walls soaked up paint for forever, but eventually we managed to get enough on to get ahead….
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Part seven: The floor in W151 was no different, that old wood soaked up a lot of that urethane… luckily we did not have to prime the floor, like we did the walls, before we started. I do not believe I mentioned this yet, this trailer was originally built in 1992!! She looks pretty good for her age. Anyway, Elizabeth and I used lambs skin brushes to apply two coats of urethane. You can see in a couple images how much this old floor drank deeply of the urethane…
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Part eight: Just a short post here… While Elizabeth was adding the second the last of the urethane to the floor, I was busy elsewhere. Using a heat gun, I changed W151 to “Dorsey” Note here, Dorcey was my nickname I had for the trailer, as she was manufactured by the Dorcey Trailer company…
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Part nine: Now the real work began. I used a cad program from work to design the interior. My family helped me measure the envelope dimensions of the trailer, and I spent a couple days laying out what I thought was the best layout for that time. Nothing has changed since, as it still works well. I supplied a lumber list to the board as well as some preliminary costs, and a lot of materials were purchased. I’ll mention here that the booster president at the time, Dave Weis, was pretty stressed at how fast the costs escalated. In the end it was money well spent. Many many parents gave up their weekends to make this happen. We would start as early as possible, and work till it was too hot to do anymore. In these images we can see the raw material, the lighting and the beginnings of the band trailer starting to be realized…
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Part ten: The upper deck was pretty simple. The challenge was finding a compromise for headroom based on whether you were walking instruments in underneath or working the upper deck placing hand instruments. The consensus was that we would spend more time in the upper deck, so the much of the head space under the deck was forfeit. For anyone who has loaded a marimba and turned and “thwacked” your head into a two-by-four… you earned that bump by design!!
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Part eleven: The trailer received new tires, and to help these ladies, who were there nearly every weekend that summer helping out, painted the rims so the new tires would look great. They also did other minor things like adding the license plate…
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Part twelve: We decided that the shelves needed carpet to keep the instrument loads from shifting around. Lowes was very gracious to donate a huge roll of carpet for the project. To get the wrinkles out, we would lay the carpet in the hot sun and bake it. An old trick my brother-n-law tought me. As it would turn out, my brother-n-law was the one who did all of the carpet installation on the shelves. Although it looks a little tattered now, the original finish job looked very professionally done.
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Part thirteen: The ramps! These ramps were of a pretty easy design. They only need to allows access at a safe angle, and be just wide enough that no-one falls off. Well, for the most part, those that have miss-stepped the ramp have not been seriously hurt. The low ride of the trailer really helped to increase the safety margin of the trailer. The ramps were built from thick plywood and two-by-sixs. The end pieces were built from a kit used to make ramps out of two-by-twelve planks. Once completed, a another gathering of parents gathered to paint the ramps with a paint that had sand added to it. The sand texture help to give the ramps that non-slip feature.
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Part fourteen: Going back a bit, the whole time we worked on the truck, and while the two band trailers were still parked side-by-side, my wife was trying to come up with graphic ideas for the new trailer. With the controversy over using the “Senator” logo, the idea of using the crest garnered some interest. Here are some images from that time of looking at a blank canvas…
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Part fifteen: The trailer was ready to roll by the first away game in 2009. It rolled the entire season without issue. In the summer of 2010 (I think) some bored students spray painted some mild graffiti on the side of the trailer. This was noted just prior to F3 day of that year. Sometime during that year, and I am a little fuzzy on the dates, the trailer was sent to Nashville to get the doors repaired (they had heavy water damage) and to get a fresh white paint job. The following year, the band boosters, along with input from my wife, Mr. Raney and others booster members, the new graphics were voted on, and it was decided to send the trailer to TravAD in Huntsville, to get them graphics applied… here is the end result, which still stands proud today!
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Part sixteen: Because of the controversy surrounding the mascot used for the Senator logo, the logo is not used much anymore by the school, and is slowly disappearing. My wife, a Sparkman High School Alumni herself, decided that the band could discretely preserve the Senator logo. A few years ago we refreshed the paint on the ramps, as they had become slick with wear, and while we were at it, my wife took it upon herself to hand paint the bands original logo on both ramps…