Greetings guys and gals! My name is Michael Kappen and I’m from Sioux Falls, SD. I am currently going to school at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln and am double majoring in Finance and Trumpet Performance (an odd combination but it keeps me busy). This will be my fourth summer with Regiment and I will be playing mellophone for a third year (I marched trumpet in ’08).

Our most recent camp went very well, and set the corps up for success at future camps and the summer. We had our first real encounter with Mother Nature at camp, as many members wandered in late Friday night due to snow delays on flights. Those who were there at the beginning, including myself, mostly drove in from closer states and cities. The roads were quite slick at times but I believe everyone arrived safely. As always, the equipment truck and box trucks needed to be unloaded at the beginning of camp. We had many members, hornline and drumline, helping unload, and it was done in a very timely fashion.

The hornline was greeted with some brand new mellophones and euphoniums, so some quick inventory had to be done. There’s nothing like getting to play a horn that you just pulled out of the plastic wrap! The trumpets received new horns at the first audition camp so they weren’t left out of the fun either.

As I said before, many flights were delayed due to weather, so numbers were looking a little slim at the beginning of camp, but throughout Friday night more people came and it started to look like a drum corps again. The hornline rehearsed together all that night, working on a lot of fundamentals and starting to dig into the show music a little more. Throughout Saturday, much of the time was spent rehearsing the first two movements of the show in individual sections. Also during this time, each section rotated through a visual/marching block.

Sunday morning yielded the release of the third movement of the show, and a few quick run throughs were recorded. However, not much time was spent in rehearsing it; the staff simply wanted to get an idea of how it sounded. The last few hours of rehearsal on Sunday, were spent in ensemble with the drums. This is always a very exciting rehearsal because it is the first time everyone (except for the colorguard) gets to play together as a corps. I’m very excited to see what our new percussion caption head, Shane Gwaltney, has in store for us.

As camp ended, the school was cleaned up and everyone was sent on their way. Overall, camp went very well and it leaves me extremely anxious to start the summer. Finally, congrats to all those who were called back; you better be working your butts off!

Kappen