KINGSTON — Echoes of bass drum thuds and big brass buzz around the corner, in rhythm with the excitement of both young and old, crowded together on either side of the street waiting to see what the ruckus could be.

Enter the 160-strong Cavalier marching band in all of its red, white and black glory, giving sound to the rotund pride of Kingston Junior High.

“That’s when you see your teachers and your family and everybody,” said KJH lead drum major Olivia Finlay. “It’s nice to march down the streets where you live, playing for everybody, and I was happy to be putting out a good image … it’s nice to see that the community respects us for what we do.”

North Kitsap residents took advantage of the chance to applaud the KJH community as the Cavalier band marched through the streets of the Viking Fest Parade May 20, sounding out a medley of energy and pride.

That same medley, including the tunes “Louie, Louie,” “Manhattan Beach” and “You Really Got Me,” also musically adorned the streets of Bremerton in the Armed Forces Day Parade and Main Street, USA in Disneyland during May.

It was an extremely exciting and tiring month for the KJH band, but band members and their director agreed that the end completely justified the means.

“It’s a lot of work,” said KJH band director Jeff Haag, noting the months of preparation that went into the formation, choreography and notation of the Cavs’ parade medley. “It’s all worthwhile when you see it happen, when you see the kids come together.”

During their initial performance of the month in Disneyland May 5-8, the KJH band members were given the opportunity to come together like never before.

“I’d never been to Disneyland before, so that was like the neatest thing in the world,” Finlay said of the Disneyland experience. “You’re able to just be a little kid and have fun with your friends.”

In addition to enjoying all that the Disneyland theme park had to offer and filling the Main Street, USA parade with KJH pride, the Cavalier band was also given the musically grown-up opportunity of laying down tracks in a top-of-the-line Disney recording studio.

Professional orchestras provide the soundtrack support for Disney’s and other animated movies, creating not only the music that moves the story along but also the sound effects that give it life.

“That’s exactly what we were doing,” Haag said. “In one hour we worked up two tunes and the kids got a chance to record us playing soundtracks to these Disney films … that was a rush!”

Not only was it a rush, Haag said it was also a look into the real world of professional music for his junior high students. And while the band’s musicians were in the studio, the KJH flag bearers and drill team went to an academy dance workshop to learn a few steps of Disney choreography.

When the groups fused again, they took what they’d learned from the clinics and applied it to their own performance as they marched down Main Street, USA, voicing their medley.

“To take what you do and put it on the road and get that kind of response, the kids feel good about what they are doing,” Haag said, adding that KJH chaperones received positive feedback from people in the crowd who had never heard the band before. “I don’t want to take a trip just for the sake of taking a trip. We are ambassadors of our community and that point was really hit home after the tragedies that happened here.”

After a mid-May week that hosted back-to-back student suicides, leaving the KJH community grieving, the Cavalier band hit the streets of Bremerton for the Armed Forces Day Parade May 20 before returning to Poulsbo for Viking Fest later that day.

“We needed to go out there and show that, yeah, we’re hurting, but we are healing,” Haag said.

“It was a great feeling, a lot of pride,” Finlay added.