South Florida school marching band selected to play for the President-elect's inauguration

CORAL SPRINGS, Fla. (WSVN) -- Students at a South Florida school have been selected to play for the new president in January. The band will march down Pennsylvania Avenue after President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration.

Before all eyes are set on the President-elect being sworn in as America's 44th President on Jan. 20, all ears will tune into, drums, tubas, trumpets and flutes, all from one of the state's best high school bands, the J.P. Taravella marching band.

The school's band director said you can expect nothing but the best. "The band does have a history of great accomplishments," said Neil Jenkins. "It's considered one of the finest marching bands in the State of Florida. They have consistent rating in superiority in marching since the school opened."

Bands from around the country will march at the inaugural parade, and as the only high school representing Florida, the Trojans are thrilled. "It's quite an honor for us to be selected we've been basically working on this since last March or April," said Jenkins, "Forming the idea to put in the application and when the applications became available we submitted it and we found out late Friday that we were selected."

The 200 plus students from Coral Springs were chosen from among nearly 1400 applicants to participate.

This may be a first, but playing for cheering crowds is nothing new for the marching Trojans whether it's in the states or overseas. "We've actually marched the London New Year's Day Parade in London, England, and last year we were in Rome participating in a Festival of Band over the New Year's holiday also," said Jenkins.

The students are more than ready to play in the historic event. They said the key to being such a success is practice. "We just practice and practice and practice to make everything really, really good and that's what we want to show to everybody else," said Yeji Kim.

The Florida A&M University marching band will also march in the parade as the only collegiate institution representing the Sunshine State.

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