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Katron Lynch, a member of the Cumberland High School Marching Band, had a unique experience this past summer. He was selected to join Blue Stars as they celebrated their 60th anniversary. According to their website, the mission of the Blue Stars is to develop life skills in young people through education and achievement in the performing arts. Their mission is “to be the marching arts organization of choice for members, staff, and volunteers.”

“My Blue Stars experience started when an Instagram post popped up on my feed saying they needed a baritone player,” Lynch said. “I emailed them about the position, and they followed up with me about how they wanted to evaluate me. The staff had me send a video playing a technical and a lyrical piece of music, as well as a video of me marching.”

His “audition” was successful, and on June 7, he was on his way to Forest City, Iowa, to join the group. Lynch explained that the Blue Stars celebrated their 60th anniversary as one of the founding corps in DCI. The celebration consisted of an Alumni Corps with alumni reaching all the way back to the 70’s to more recent members, a banquet to celebrate and commemorate the 60 year legacy of the Blue Stars, and a final performance with the ‘24 Blue Stars and the Alumni Corps.

There were some challenges in this endeavor, Lynch noted.

“Walking into the season late presented a lot of challenges physically because I did not get the same pre-season training as everyone else, but nonetheless I prevailed through with encouragement of my friends and staff,” Lynch said. “Not every day was ideal in terms of weather but that didn’t stop a group that could push through adversity dealing with rain, heat, and UVs over 10.”

Katron also pointed out the positives of this experience.

“Performing at shows was always fun getting to hear the crowd go crazy over any small thing we did. All the staff were friendly, and the members were very nice to bond with,” Lynch said. “Every member had a tour job and mine was ‘PM prop crew.’ After shows and rehearsals we disassembled the props and loaded them which took around 15-20 minutes every night. My role in the show was to help the color guard get their flags and rifles behind the props, march and play during the ballad, and help out more guard members during the second half of the show.”

Katron was recognized by the School Board at the Oct. 4 meeting.