There’s a Mom in the Marching Band!

When Lois Roegge, 59, isn’t on the field with the rest of the N.C. State marching band, she is working on her graduate degree and has a job in small-business lending in Cary, North Carolina. Here’s her story.

Sometimes I feel like I’ve told people I ran off to join the circus when I say I’m in a college marching band. They go “OK,” then say, “Wait, what?” There’s nothing like being part of a 400-member band on a football field, playing for a crowd. We perform the fight song, the alma mater and the national anthem. We spell out the N.C. State logo. We’re on the field when the jets fly over and the fireworks burst in the sky. In the stands, we’re cheering and sweating and chanting and shouting and playing.

My initial interest came from watching my kids in their high school marching bands. These bands had props, soloists and electronics. They competed in regional and national competitions. It was very different from my experience playing French horn in high school marching band in the ’80s. When I started my graduate degree in accounting at N.C. State two years ago, I was single, and my kids were a freshman and a junior in college. I didn’t have to worry about taking care of anyone but myself. I felt completely in control of my destiny at that point. I was ready to do some things for me.

More Ways to Benefit

View All

MEMBERS ONLY

View Benefit

MEMBERS ONLY

View Benefit

MEMBERS ONLY

View Benefit

MEMBERS ONLY

View Benefit

MEMBERS ONLY

View Benefit

Previous Next

1. Related Benefit 1
2. Related Benefit 2
3. Related Benefit 3
4. Related Benefit 4
5. Related Benefit 5

The summer before I got to N.C. State, I asked the band director if I could join the band. He said I could if I passed the audition. I got out the horn my parents bought me when I was 15 and started playing. It sounded awful. My range was five notes. Over the next two months, I worked up to scales, arpeggios and an étude to demonstrate my musical ability in the audition. After I submitted my audition video, that’s when the doubts really crept in. I checked my email multiple times a day to see if there was any word. It felt like six weeks, but it was only two when the email came. My name was there under “new members.” I started to cry.

In the band, I play the mellophone, the marching version of a French horn. Game days are a 12-hour event. We get our uniforms on, we polish our instruments. We do a full rehearsal. Later, we’ll wait in a tunnel until we hear the drums start their cadence. Everybody screams, and we all run onto the football field. When this band marches, it’s not just marching. It’s all sorts of routines, dances and chants. It was hard to learn the choreography and play at the same time. Now that I’ve been in the band for two years, I have it down, but that first year, I’d constantly think, Don’t forget where you’re supposed to go. The last thing I wanted was for anybody to assume, “Oh, she can’t do it because she’s old.” My first game, I was equal parts amazed and “don’t screw up.”

I’m proud of my age. Being in the band is like a little midlife fairy tale. I’ve learned that you can do things you never imagined, and people will welcome you doing them.