PSU Magazine Summer 1990

Let's hear it one more time Portland State alumni are having fun (and sounding pretty good too) as members of the One More Time Around Again Marching Band. J an Keiski, at age 41 , has it down - the pep, the step and the grin - as she twirls her baton each Rose Festival season with the One More Time Around Again Marching Band (OMTAAMB). Keiski ('86 BS) is just one of many Portland State alumni returning to the limelight with the world's largest adult marching band. She joins 503 former high school and college musicians , dancers, flag wavers , and majorettes like herself, for what everyone describes as "a really great time ." The marching band, begun six years ago by Bill Chisholm for the Portland Rose Festival Starlight and Grand Floral parades, keeps getter bigger, better and more popular every year. It was a crowd favorite at the 1990 New Year's Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena , Calif.The OMTAAMB is sponsored by Miller Brewing. Chisholm , a former Centennial High School band director, only asks that the musicians be able to play an instrument and march , preferably at the same time . And he insists that no one "get too serious. " Portland State alumni have brought musical expertise to the OMTAAMB , but marching know-how has had to come from high school experience. PSU has not had a marching band since the Vanport era. This was no problem for majorette Jan Keiski , a parade performing veteran . She twirled in the Junior Rose Parade at age 9, marched as head majorette her senior year at Gresham High School, and coached a team of junior parade twirlers in 1969 . In fact , Keiski helped put herself through Portland State teaching baton to little girls in the late '60s . At that time she also played clarinet in the PSU Pep Band. Keiski returned to PSU in 1986 to fini sh a bachelor's degree in geography. PSU 14 Article and photographs by Kathryn Kirkland OMTAAMB member David Boe ('83 , ' 88 BAs) played in the PSU Pep Band just last term . He is fini shing a master's degree in French . Boe, 33, is first trumpet with the marching band which gives him the privilege of playing those prolonged high notes that finish certain songs - real crowd pleasers. He particularly enjoys the Festival of the Bands where OMTAAMB plays in exhibition . "When we played "America the Beautiful" we had people crying last year, " said Boe. "We did the same thing in Pasadena. We played "Amazing Grace" and there were probably 3,000 people in the immediate stands around us. They all jumped to their feet when we got to the end. It is just a thrill to be with that big a group and sound that good. " Dan Arrayan ('88 BA) marched this year in the Grand Floral parade playing trumpet with the OMTAAMB . He also appeared in the Junior Rose Parade with hi s IIO-member Sellwood Middle School band. "This is my first teaching job , and I can't believe I'm doing this, " Arrayan said in an interview before the big event. Lambert Morris (' 60 BS), former band director at Beaverton High School for 18 years and now at a middle school , says he is glad to be back in a band, this time as a performer - a laid-back performer. " If my students in the Beaverton High band had acted like I do in this band," said Morris, "I probably would have thrown them out." Of coarse, what high school band has ever dressed in baseball hats and tacky bowling shirts and been told by their director to "have the time of your life! " The fun-loving One More Time Around Again Marching Band also includes PSU alumni : Gordon Anderson ('80 MS), Rick n virler Jan Keiski ('86 BS) Bauman ('73 BS), Richard Boberg (' 72 BS), Diane Stewart Crane ('72 BS, ' 75 MST), Nancy Goldman ('76 BS), Sandy Jackson (' 74 BA), Heather Kennedy (' 88 BS), Susan Rustvold ('81 BS), Susan Schmidt (' 79 BS , '88 MPA), Donna and Jeanne Sheets ('89 BAs), Justine Sutton ('84 BS), and Bruce Tolonen (' 78 MST). For those alumni who did not appear in this list, it is too late for this year, but please send the Office ofAlumni affairs an ''Alum Note': if you play in the OMTAAMB next spring. It is not too late to catch a performance by the One More Time Around Again Marching Band . The band will play during the PSU Viking versus Cal Poly football game on September 22 at 7 p.m. in the Portland Civic Stadium. D