SAN ANTONIO \u2013 A train collision nearly disrupted a Central Texas high school\u2019s performance at the Alamodome for the state title contest \u2014 and San Antonio bands stepped up to help.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday afternoon, the Vandergrift High School band from Austin took the field at the Alamodome to compete for this year\u2019s UIL State Open Class Marching Band Contest.<\/p>\n
But a day before, the band was forced to regroup after a train smashed into the school\u2019s semi-truck that transports their instruments and equipment.<\/p>\n
The crash happened on the train track on Carolina Street, just past Hoefgen Avenue, not far from Interstate 37.<\/p>\n
No injuries were reported, but Vandergrift was scheduled to perform around 6 p.m. Monday.<\/p>\n
An official with Vandergrift told KSAT that most of the equipment in its transport truck remained intact after the crash \u2014 but not everything.<\/p>\n
Brett Nelson, the director of bands for San Antonio\u2019s Reagan High School, said the news of the collision shocked band members, but the emotion was replaced with the need to help.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe contacted the band director at Vandergrift. He\u2019s the former director at Claudia Taylor Johnson {here in San Antonio},\u201d Nelson said. \u201cAnd we said, \u2018What do you need?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Jarrett Lipman is listed as Vandergrift\u2019s director of the marching band.<\/p>\n
Nelson said band members, their parents and Reagan High School as a whole began coordinating efforts and equipment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe literally packed up as many instruments as we possibly could. All of our school instruments, some of the students loaned their personal instruments,\u201d he said. \u201cWe brought about 100 instruments and several percussion, keyboard equipment to the Alamodome.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nelson said Reagan was not the only local high school to jump into action to assist Vandergrift.<\/p>\n
Johnson High School\u2019s band director, Robert Lozano, and his band members also pitched in.<\/p>\n
Although all three schools were competing for a state title, Nelson happily responded to the question of why they would assist their rivals by saying, \u201cWe don\u2019t view it as competition.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe think of it as one gigantic band family, and our friends at Claudia Taylor Johnson, we rise to the call. We know they would do it for us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Nelson laid out that borrowing instruments among bands during competition and shows is pretty common, and that this incident truly warranted a friendly face.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was just a circumstance we knew we needed to help out with because these kids deserved to have their best performance,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He mentioned that one of the key lessons taught to Reagan students is the importance of being a good person in the broader perspective of life.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing a good person and doing the right thing is what we\u2019re trying to teach these kiddos,\u201d Nelson said.<\/p>\n
Vandergrift\u2019s state competition performance was rescheduled for around 9:15 p.m. Monday. They were able to advance to Tuesday\u2019s round of competition, along with Reagan.<\/p>\n
The state contest for Class 2A, 4A, and 6A is set to wrap up on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Read also:<\/p>\n
Copyright 2025 by KSAT – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2013 A train collision nearly disrupted a Central Texas high school\u2019s performance at the Alamodome for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36167,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[3082,22839,22838,6527,13383,22837,82,84,83,2294],"class_list":["post-36166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-alamodome","tag-bands","tag-johnson-high-school","tag-ksatkids","tag-performance","tag-reagan-high-school","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news","tag-uil"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}