Tyner tuba player Miracle Chappell, 16, reads sheet music during practice with fellow band members outside Tyner Middle Academy. Chappell uses electrical tape to secure parts of her instrument together in the marching band. "Chappell is a musician," band director Elias Smith said. "She just switched to tuba from clarinet in June, and picked it right up."Get involvedTyner Academy band will accept band instruments, or checks can be submitted to Tyner Pride Band, c/o Band Director Elias Smith, Tyner Academy, 6836 Tyner Road, Chattanooga, TN 37421
Miracle Chappelle got promoted to play tuba in Tyner Academy's marching band.
"She's a great musician," band director Elias Smith said of the 11th-grade girl who played clarinet in middle school and trombone until this summer, when Smith saw her potential for the big brass instrument.
"You can spot a student who's a true musician," Smith said. "She can play whatever you put in her hands."
Trouble is, the decades-old, battered tuba that Chappelle plays is held together with black electrical tape.
"It's not that bad," Chappelle said with a shrug during band practice this week.
But it's par for the course at the predominantly black high school where the marching band wins trophies and wows crowds with its high-stepping "show" marching style even as band members play instruments that are falling apart. Duct tape keeps a banged-up, silver-plated baritone horn working, cymbals are cracked, and the hardware that holds drums together is falling off.
"They're doing well, But they're doing well on junk," Smith said of his band members.
Getting all the equipment the 60-member Tyner Pride marching band needs would cost between $50,000 and $60,000, he said. A new tuba, for example, costs about $5,000, Smith said.
The band's booster club raises money by putting on fundraisers and handling the parking at home football games, he said. But the Booster Club's earnings get eaten up by such expenses as hiring buses to take the band to away games.
"Car washes and fish fries don't do it," Smith said.
The band performs at community events, but Smith doesn't want to charge too much for that because he considers it a community service.
"Most people in the community, they don't have the money, either," Smith said.
The band can't turn to the Hamilton County Department of Education for funding. The school district pays teachers an extra 8 percent above their normal salary to lead marching bands, but it doesn't buy band instruments.
"We don't fund the band. We don't fund the football teams. They fund themselves," Assistant Superintendent Lee McDade said. It's been that way, McDade said, for the 27 years he's worked for the school district and probably longer.
Former County Commissioner Larry Henry gave $5,000 in discretionary funds about five years ago, Smith said, that the band spent on two used tubas.
"I always tried to help out Tyner all I could," said Henry, who was elected in August as Hamilton County Circuit Court clerk. "I knew they were in bad shape back then."
Band directors in the school district also help one another out, Smith said.
"We were fortunate that Soddy-Daisy's band director lent us one of their tubas for the season," Smith said.
Smith hopes that people in the community will come forward with donations. A fundraising effort two years ago at Howard School, another predominantly black high school, was launched to help Howard's band buy new instruments.
That was a success, with more than 135 checks sent to Howard School ranging from $5 to $3,000. The fundraising outstripped the goal of $50,000 and garnered $85,000 in cash contributions and more than $15,000 worth of instruments.
Smith will accept donations of instruments, too. Tyner's band room is littered with old instruments that are scavenged for parts.
"That's our tuba graveyard over there," Smith said. "As you can see, we can make things work."
Contact staff writer Tim Omarzu at tomarzu@timesfreepress.com or www.facebook.com/tim.omarzu or twitter.com/TimOmarzu or 423-757-6651.