Band Camp is the Auburn High School Band's one-week intensive marching and music session.  Traditionally held in mid- to late August, the primary purposes of Band Camp are to polish the first show, learn the 20 or so stand pieces in the folder, build a section and band sound cohesiveness, and most importantly, to create band unity.  Most former and present Auburn High School Band members will remember Band Camp as the most enjoyable experience of their entire high school career.  From Midnight Marching to Rookie Rocks to the Senior Bonfire, Band Camp has left an indelible mark on the lives--both musically and otherwise--of the thousands of students who have passed through it.  This page is dedicated to the Spirit of Band Camp; to the students, section instructors, camp directors, life guards, doctors, kitchen staff, trash guys, parents, directors, early crews and late crews; to the hundreds who have shaped our memories of Band Camp into what they are today.
 

The first 'modern' Band Camp was in 1961, when the First Annual Auburn High School Band Camp at Franklin Delano Roosevelt State Park in Pine Mountain, Georgia was held.  The location of FDR State Park was chosen due to the remoteness of the location (the park is nearly 70 miles from Auburn, and 25 miles from the nearest large town, La Grange), as well as its availability of a marching field, enough cabin space to house an entire marching band, group cooking facilities for the band, and covered arbor space for music rehearsals and recreation.  The camp, held at the park's Large Group Camp, was located on a lake, and had a dock and swimming areas.  The Large Group camp was divided into 4 units, which in the mid 1990s were divided into Unit I & II, guys; and Units III & IV, girls; and in total consisted of 21 cabins.

The front enterance to the Band Camp mess hall, often the site of long lines of freshmen and sophomores hoping that arriving 15 minutes prior to meals would keep upperclassmen from exerting their privilige of being first in line.  It never worked.

A standard Band Camp schedule looked something like this:   7:15 am - Morning Dip 7:30 am - Reveille 8:00 am - Breakfast 9:00 am - Section Drills  9:30 am - Marching Practice 10:30 am - Break 10:45 am - Marching Practice 12:15 pm - Lunch 1:45 pm - Sectionals 2:45 pm - Music Rehearsal 3:45 pm - Quite Time 5:30 pm - Dinner 6:45 pm - Marching Practice 8:15 pm - Mail Call 8:45 pm - Recreation 10:15 pm - Vespers 11:15 pm - Taps

The Band Camp drill field, from the wooded hill overlooking it.  While the band drilled, the section instructors would sit in folding chairs on the hill and watch the band's progress.  Also the site of several unsanctioned 'midnight marching' drills, and where many band members learned the usfull skill of  hittring the lines without stepping on them, lest they face the band manager's wrath.

Band Camp continued at FDR with only one interruption (due to renovations at the park that year) from 1961 to 1996.  Prior to the Thirty-Seventh Annual Band Camp, it was decided that the Band was too large (appr. 250 students + 30 chaperones and staff) to comply with the Georgia Park Service's insurance requirements if Band Camp was held there again.  So, in 1997, Band Camp was held, in a slightly altered form, at Auburn High School.  Unfortunately, all attempts since then to find a suitable site to hold future Band Camps have failed, and all subsequent sessions of Band Camp were also to be held at AHS.

This photo is taken from the Large Arbor towards the lake.  The Large Arbor was the location of full band music rehearsals, as well as clarinet sectionals.  Also held in the Large Arbor were the Band Camp Dance, the Band Camp Talent Show, the Band Camp (Womanless) Beauty Pagent, and nightly Vespers.

The 2001 edition of Auburn High School Band Camp, the 41st Annual, will be held on August 6-9 on the campus of Auburn High School.  Band Camp rehearsals will be roughly from 8 am to 6 pm, and consist of music, sectional, and marching rehearsals, with Recreation and Vespers later in the evening.  Band Camp will close with the Senior Bonfire and sleepover at, fittingly, the CCC Camp of Chewacla State Park, a camp built by the programs of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

These are the two farthest cabins in Unit III, typically a female unit.

The percussion at their normal sectional location, the ampitheatre, overlooking the lake.  The ampitheatre is also the location of the senior bonfire on the final night of Camp.

A group of band members relax in front of the Band Camp Lake.  At far right, the lake's dock can be seen, the site of  many, shall we say, unrequested freshman swimming sessions.