Band’s veterans do double-duty in Memorial Day concert

CEDAR RAPIDS - The 50 musicians readied their trumpets, xylophones, clarinets and drums Monday morning as they prepared to play the national anthem, 'America the Beautiful” and a medley of songs honoring branches of the U.S. military.

Playing at the All Veterans Memorial Day Park ceremony in Cedar Rapids, the band helped recognize fallen soldiers and veterans.

Many in the New Horizons band, though they couldn't stop playing to stand for recognition, had military records of their own. All members of the band are 55 or older and retirees.

Some served in the Vietnam War, others in Operation Desert Shield and some during peacetime. The veterans said playing familiar military tunes reminded them of old friends and family members who served.

'It's always emotional,” said Sarah Sullivan, 57, who played the tenor saxophone and served in the Army. 'I think about my buddies who are still there, and the ones who never came back. I think about my son who was over in Iraq. ... Sometimes there's no words to describe it.”

For Ken Cook, 70, the concern also led to some reflection.

'It brought back some of the memories and the friends, like my dad, my grandfather, my uncle,” said Cook, who played clarinet under a Vietnam War cap.

Despite steamy temperatures during the morning ceremony, few of the New Horizons band musicians could be kept away.

Those who were had doctor's orders - including 96-year-old Luman Colton, a World War II veteran who said he was shipped to Paris a few months after D-Day.

It's not uncommon for health concerns to arise in a band with many elderly members, said band director Alan Lawrence.

'We've sounded better, just because people had sweat in their eyes,” Lawrence said of Monday's performance. 'But I did not hear one complaint about us being there. There was never any doubt - people tend to bite the bullet and do what they're asked to do.”

Don Paynter, a 68-year-old trumpeter who was a military doctor with the Air Force, said playing Monday stirred memories of his service as well as his father's.

'You don't hear the songs enough, so when you do hear them, especially in that situation, it does bring back memories,” Paynter said.

Alongside memories from the service, Paynter said playing in the band Monday was special because he did the same thing as a high school student in Brooklyn, Iowa.

'We would go to two or three cemeteries around our rural community and perform with our band then,” he said. 'So it brought back a lot of memories for me to do this today.”

It had been years since Paynter picked up a trumpet before he joined New Horizons, which is fairly common for the band's musicians.

When it started nearly 20 years ago, Lawrence recalled one trumpet player said in 1999 she hadn't gotten her instrument out of her case since before Pearl Harbor.

'And it sort of sounded like it for a while,” Lawrence joked.

The band has grown from about 10 to more than 50 players since then, though even now many of the musicians hadn't picked up an instrument for years before joining.

'That's the nature of the band,” said Roger Lueders, 73, who chose to pick up the French horn because of his daughter's expertise. 'You play an instrument you haven't played in lots and lots of years, or one you haven't ever before.”

The band's membership lends itself to strong camaraderie as well, the band director said.

'The social atmosphere of it, I just got lucky,” said Lawrence, 62, who teaches percussion music at Coe College and Cornell College. 'It's a bunch of people who have had lots of friendships develop, and it's been great to watch.”

At a lunch after the performance, band members celebrated Ken Kirby, a founding member of the band who, at 94, is giving up his tuba after 50 years of playing.

'My horn is so heavy, I can't handle it anymore,” Kirby said. 'I used to, 20 years ago, I could pick it up with one hand and run up two steps at a time. At 75, I was pretty good.”

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