A bit of Tiger pride will step off with the Kenton Ridge High School Cougar Marching Band at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Director of the Springfield band, Jim Templeton, is a Cuyahoga Falls Tiger Marching Band 1986 alum.
His proud parents, Jim Templeton Sr. and wife, Gayle, will be glued to the television in their Cooper Drive home and recording the parade on two channels to relive the band's one minute and 20-seconds performance of Ragtime in front of the television cameras.
Jim Sr. said his son played trombone under the direction of Robert Feldbush during his four years in the Falls band.
"He admired Mr. Feldbush and modeled (Kenton Ridge) band after the Tiger Band," Jim Sr. said.
There were 36 members when Templeton became the Cougar band director in 1999.
On Monday, 147 members filled seven Greyhound buses bound for New York.
"He has really grown that program," Jim Sr. said. "This is his whole life."
