The West Monroe High School Rebel Band has been selected to play at President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration. Band Director Robert Freeman says West Monroe was the only high school in Louisiana chosen to perform in the parade. He says it’s exciting for these students to have this once in a lifetime experience.

“This kind of unique transfer of power the United States has that makes us unique to the rest of the world is something that’s pretty unforgettable and is really something that high school kids would only get to experience once,” Freeman said.

Freeman says the band just found out they were selected Tuesday and called an emergency meeting to decide if parents would want to put up the roughly $600 it will cost for students to attend. He says they took a vote, and it was clear everyone wanted to play at this historic event.

“There will be some certainly out of pocket expenses, as well as fundraising to try to make this happen. This was a decision that we didn’t take lightly. We were honored to be accepted,” Freeman said.

Freeman says the Rebel Band will likely play a medley of Louisiana tunes that was arranged for them when the band played at President George W. Bush’s second inauguration. He says they plan to tweak the piece to make it a unique arrangement for this event.

“We’ll be using Jimmy Davis’ ‘You are my Sunshine,’ a little bit of ‘Jambalaya,’ ‘When the Saints Go Marching In,’ all kind of melded together in a musical gumbo,” Freeman said.

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