Sunday, Jan. 5 marks the third day that the Legend Titan Marching Band has been stranded in Jacksonville, Fla. after a winter storm cancelled their flight on Thursday. The band is currently staying in the Fairfield Marriott hotel, but will have to move to another nearby hotel on Monday as the Marriott is booked.
On Saturday, the band enjoyed a showing of Disney’s Frozen after lunch at Chick-Fil-A and Five Guys. Dinner was pizza at the hotel.
On Sunday, Band Director Orlando Otis, Administrator Mari Farley, and the chaperones secured a charter bus for free. The bus took the band to a family rec center, where the students roller skated, golfed and played at the arcade. Lunch was sandwiches and dinner was McDonald’s.
Funds for this extended trip have been pulled from an emergency school fund, but money for food and games for the students has been pooled from the chaperones, as well as Farley and Otis. During free time, students gather in the hallways and common room to play games like Uno and Apples to Apples. Students craving a snack can grab one from Farley or one of the chaperones.
Principal Corey Wise has excused band students from school on Monday and Tuesday, and Farley has been communicating with teachers through this ordeal.
Four people–two students and two chaperones–will be flying home on an 11:40 a.m. flight on Monday, Jan. 6. The rest of the band and chaperones will be flying home on four separate flights on Tuesday morning, 41 people at 7:05 a.m., four at 8:35, two at 9:25, and five at 11:10.
“It’s been fun, but you can only be with the same group of people for so long,” junior Hallie Kimbrel said. “I think we all need some time away from each other.”
Otis has told the band that each member will be writing a short essay on their experience throughout the trip, and that the essays will be going up around the school for other students to read.