Should your attention be captured by the energetic, baton-twirling figure leading the marching band at your next Pickerington High School North football game, you’ve got Mitchell Elston to thank for it.
Elston, a senior at North, became the school’s first-ever drum major at the beginning of the 2012-13 school year.
In 2010, after attending his first Buckeye football game, Elston was so impressed by the Best Damn Band in the Land’s drum major that he immediately aspired to fill that role at his high school.
“It adds a sense of pride,” he says.
He approached Marc Parulekar, the school’s director of bands, and told him he wanted North to have a drum major. After convincing him of the position’s merits, Elston took two years of lessons through The Ohio State University’s free drum major training program, tried out for the position at the start of this school year and got it. He even helped design the uniform.
Though marching bands are often known for their showmanship as well as their instrumentation, no band member on the field is as much of a showman as the drum major. Elston describes a good drum major as having a “Hey, look at me!” attitude – strutting wherever he or she goes on the field, twirling a baton, throwing it high in the air and performing under-the-leg and behind-the-back catches, even posing in the formidable “back bend” position.
The latter trick in particular requires a great deal of practice to learn, Elston says.
“I did not get that in a day,” he says.
Thanks to North’s success on the gridiron this year – the team went 12-2 and tied Pickerington High School Central for the OCC-Ohio Division title – Elston got plenty of opportunities to perform for a variety of crowds. He performed routines to such songs as “Hang on Sloopy,” “Moves Like Jagger” by Maroon 5 and “We Got the Beat” by the Go-Go’s, and he helped choreograph a halftime show set to PSY’s “Gangnam Style.”
Being a drum major is helpful for learning leadership, as the drum major leads the band, and for getting comfortable with being in front of people, Elston says. He was nervous the first few times he performed, he says, but now he’s acclimated to public appearances, even hosting North’s comedy showcase event.
“It helps you conquer stage fright, definitely,” he says.
Though Elston graduates this year and will not return to the field in the fall, the drum major position is now part of North’s line-up, and another student is training to take over the role for 2013-14.
When not leading the band on the field, Elston plays the trombone. He was section leader for two years and is band president. He also plays Ultimate Frisbee and is a member of National Honor Society, through which he serves at logistics chairman for Pickerington’s pet food pantry.
After he graduates, Elston is headed to the Honors College at Kent State University, where he will major in biology. He plans to take a pre-med sequence and already has his career plans mapped out.
“After that, I will move on to be a sports medicine physician,” he says.
Kent State does not have a drum major, though Elston has not ruled out the possibility of petitioning for one. And if he should happen to attend med school at OSU, he would be eligible to be part of OSU’s band.
Garth Bishop is editor of Pickerington Magazine. Feedback welcome at gbishop@cityscenemediagroup.com.
Story and photos Garth Bishop
