For a change, this month’s column is not about reading books. You could say it’s about reading hope in some local high school students.
Human civilization is built over generations in fits and starts and at enormous cost. On a good day we build it slightly faster than its enemies dismantle it. In real life as in Dostoevsky’s novels, good’s margin of victory over evil is narrow indeed. We may disagree on who is building and who is dismantling lately, and how and why. But we sense there haven’t been enough good days recently.
True, we’re surrounded by good things. Some things are the best they’ve ever been. But it’s easy to lose hope, especially if we imbibe the 24/7 news cycle and the endless, performative musings of the professional commenting class. It’s easy to look ahead and look around and despair for the future.
I’ve found an antidote in the past, and it still works: spending time with local youth. It hasn’t always been the American Fork High School Marching Band. It doesn’t have to be a band at all. But lately it has been, again.
Eleven years ago, a young filmmaker named Matt Judkins read something I wrote and sought me out. He and his brother Russ were making a film about the band’s 2013 season, which involved reaching the semifinals at Grand Nationals in Indianapolis. They needed a writer. Was I interested?
I was interested. We interviewed a few teachers, staff, administrators, parents, and donors, but mostly we interviewed students, dozens of students. The result was a feature-length documentary I still enjoy, Champions of the West.
I never expected to write for film, even in a league far below Hollywood. I also didn’t expect the experience to teach me hope.
I defy any cynic, any outright pessimist, to come away from that many hours with those youth without feeling hope, without thinking the future might be in good hands after all.
Matt approached me again, more than a year ago, about writing for another film about the band. This time, perhaps, they would make finals at Grand Nationals.
We decided early on to live dangerously. Instead of relying on a narration to tell parts of the story, we would rely on the band itself. The interviews were fewer and mostly shorter than before, but they gave us what we needed. And this time it wasn’t a surprise. In those two or three dozen teenagers I interviewed, I saw hope. Again.
In the footage we used and far more that we didn’t, they were happy to talk about making finals, which they did. That goal had eluded AFHS in several attempts since 1995. But they kept returning to higher things: hard work, loyalty, discipline, friendship, service, joy.
The older students were with the band in 2022, when it fell a tiny fraction of a point short of finals. They talked about helping and wanting to help the younger students, especially the rookies, with music, drill, and other details. They talked even more about helping them feel they belonged, feel seen; helping them with the challenges of a new school and new experiences; helping them keep going when things got difficult; helping them understand and believe that working to create something beautiful would be worth it in the end. The older students wanted to share what they had learned by experience: the joy and satisfaction of showing up every day, working harder than you thought you could work, learning to do your best, and finally leaving everything you had on the field.
When I was in a high school band, we put on our uniforms and marched around a little, for one football halftime show and one parade every year. I didn’t enjoy it. Fortunately, I had memorable, formative experiences with peers, teachers, and coaches, elsewhere in music and in my sport of choice.
I was in the Snake River High School Class of 1983. That’s 42 years of data, you might say, and I gratefully report that even most of the classmates we thought might not turn out well actually did. When I reconnect with any of them, I quickly learn to admire, if I didn’t already, the people they’ve become and the hardships they’ve overcome.
What does that have to do with the AFHS Marching Band in 2025? This: Some of us thought very highly of ourselves back in high school. The youth with whom I’ve mingled lately may actually be as good now as we thought we were then.
How can I not feel hope?
This column appeared in print and electronic versions of the American Fork Citizen in July 2025. Reprinted with permission.
Eyes with Pride will be released on YouTube in early July 2025. When it is, a link will be here.
From the Author
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