For Clovis North Band Director David Lesser, being accepted as one of the marching bands to perform in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 2022 is a dream come true.
“This is my 20th year as a music teacher and since day one, even in college, it was one of my goals to be able to have the experience of being in the Macy’s parade,” Lesser said.
Clovis North was selected as one of the nine bands out of hundreds of applicants across the country to participate in the 96th annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 2022.
Lesser first applied to the event through an application in fall of 2019 which consisted of various different recommendations, referrals and videos of the band’s performance from that year.
On Valentine’s Day of 2020, he got a call saying that Clovis North had been accepted into the parade, but was asked to keep it a secret once the pandemic hit in March.
“I had to keep this secret for an entire year and it was the longest secret I’ve kept and I never want to have to do it again,” he laughed.
Lesser said all year he had been hinting that something good was coming in the future for the Broncos marching band.
Just last week he was able to finally announce the news to his students over Zoom about their upcoming performance.
Unfortunately due to the pandemic, the marching band hasn’t been able to meet as a whole for practices online since the pandemic altered their class schedule, but this gave Lesser the opportunity to tell each of his class periods about their acceptance into the parade.
“We’re fortunate because this is one thing really positive that we can look forward to as some really big momentum to move forward that lots of groups aren’t going to have that same opportunity,” he said.
Clovis North is the sixth school from California to be picked to perform in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade since its creation in 1924.
Clovis West has appeared in the parade three times in the past in 1988, 1995 and 2000.
This is Clovis North’s first ever appearance in the Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Lesser and his students couldn’t be more excited to start preparing.
“I told the kids throughout the week, ‘So do you realize how many people watch this,’” Lesser said.
“There’s only one thing that’s watched more and it’s the Superbowl, so there’s over 50 million people that watch the parade.”
The approximate costs for the marching band to travel to New York is close to $500,000.
Macy’s has offered $10,000 as a contribution towards the band’s travel expenses and many fundraising efforts are being created to help the group raise enough for their cross country trip.
“I’m looking forward to just watching the kids grow [and] I’m looking forward to seeing how fast we can get them back to where we were and move them forward,” Lesser said.
“I really like the journey. My favorite part is all the rehearsals and all the hard work…and then just to sit back and enjoy.”
For updates regarding fundraising efforts and to watch the Broncos prepare for this upcoming performance head to https://www.facebook.com/ClovisNorthBandColorGuard/ for the latest news.