The Harding Music Parents are happy to report the effort has been remarkably successful.  In three months, we’ve raised the money required to buy 175 new red and black uniforms, which will make their debut in the Marion Popcorn Parade September 6th.  Going into the campaign back in April, we were concerned about whether we could raise enough money quickly enough to have the uniforms produced and on the field for this fall’s football season.  As it turns out, we underestimated our community’s generosity and affection for the band and the kids who make it up.

This exercise has been instructive in how far and wide the Marion community extends.  As word spread about the campaign, we’ve heard from Marion graduates going back to the class of 1919 and as far away as Hawaii and China.  There’s Oliver Hamilton, at 104, who graduated from Marion’s high school before it was named Harding—since Warren Harding had not yet ascended to the presidency.  Then there’s Hank Rinnert, Class of 1955 who just recently called in and bought a uniform.  Hank was co-captain of the football team, junior class president and student council president during his time at Harding in the mid-50s.  After graduation, he went to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, beginning a career in the Navy where the leadership he cultivated in Marion took root as a captain with several tours in Vietnam among his stations.  Today, he lives in Aiea, Hawaii where he puts a civil engineering degree to use in a construction business.

There are so many—Al Hinklin, a successful Chicago architect now living in Florida who took the campaign under his wing and spread the word through his class newsletter.  There’s Pete DeWolfe,  who contributes every day to his alma mater as a substitute teacher or coach and helper in the football program.  There are the folks on Blaine Avenue and Church Street and Merchant and Reed and dozens of other Marion streets and avenues who’ve bought uniforms or pieces of uniforms who were in the band, or had children in the band, or who just admire the band and are proud of the community it represents.

In the course of distributing the campaign’s brochures, I’ve had a great walk around town, up and down hundreds of front porches.  Where neighbors gathered on those porches, some great discussions ensued.  We talked about the band, but also about times gone by, times yet to come, and what Marion will be going forward.  Generalizing about so many conversations runs the risk of over-simplification, but it seemed to me that, for the most part, there is cautious optimism about Marion’s future.  Yes, there’s still nostalgia for the past—the days when downtown was the center of commerce, when big plants employed almost everyone in town and money flowed freely.  Of course, the tendency is always to remember the happy snapshots as we build the legend of the “golden age” of the past.  I wouldn’t say there’s “gushing” optimism about the future.  But, it seemed to me, the optimism is cautious and hopeful.  We realize it can never be exactly as it was 50 years ago.  Times and circumstances have changed.  But it can still be good.  And the fact that we can have that discussion at all is encouraging.

Through all the walks and front porch discussions, through the phone conversations with Marionites now living in other places, the one constant is a deep affection for this place we call home.  Warren Harding ran his Front Porch Campaign extolling the virtues and values of his Midwestern home town.  What I found, walking around that same town in 2007 were those same virtues and values.  Yes, we have issues—who doesn’t?  But we’re still a community that can put on quite a show at the Palace, where people can enjoy their neighbors and be optimistic about their futures—and dress the high school band in record time!  It’s been fun to be away for a week, but it will be nice to come home.