My name is Joshua Ziegler. I’m a senior at Rio Rancho High School in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, and I participate in quite a few extracurriculars, one of my most important being marching band and just band as a whole. I’ve been playing trumpet for nearly 8 years now and am just barely beginning to scratch the surface of my capabilities and accomplishments.

Something I’ve looked up to for quite some time is a national institution known as Drum Corps International (DCI). It’s a group that organizes and runs competitions and events for professional marching bands (drum corps) and has them compete and perform for entertainment. Though it’s an honor to be accepted and to play with any of these drum corps groups, some corps could be considered more prestigious than others and tend to place higher in the yearly competitions.

For the past several months, I’ve been working to hone my skills for a marching band setting and preparing to audition for a top 10 drum corps. On December 2nd, after my audition took place, I was informed that I had been accepted into a drum corps group known as The Troopers. It is a group that is based in Casper, Wyoming, and like most other drum corps, they travel around the country to perform.

With the privilege to be able to travel and perform for so many people comes the responsibility to train and create a marching show that people could be proud of. I’m extremely excited to be able to say that I’ll be marching with The Troopers this summer and be training and learning music at such a high level.

Because the training process is so long and there are loads of people along the way to help you become a better musician, it costs quite a bit of money to participate in an activity like drum corps. Though I’ll be paying for most of these fees myself, it will be extremely difficult to accumulate that much money in such a short time without the help of others.

That’s why I’m trying to raise money through a GoFundMe, in an attempt to ease the financial burden that comes with drum corps.