VENTURA : Middle School Band Drafted for Naval Station Ceremony

They showed up in T-shirts, shorts, jeans and sneakers. Some were chewing gum. Most of them were giggling.

But the De Anza Middle School Band members got down to business Wednesday as they honed their program for a Friday morning change-of-command ceremony at Pt. Mugu Naval Air Weapons Station.

The 20 musicians, ages 12 to 14, have spent the past week polishing their renditions of Anchors Aweigh, the Star-Spangled Banner and the traditional military cadence known as Ruffles and Flourishes .

The children’s intensity was illustrated Wednesday by the “I did it” that burst out of a member of the flute section following a successful ruffle.

Friday’s ceremony will mark the arrival of Cmdr. Daniel R. McCort and the departure of Capt. Thomas A. Perkins from the VX-4 Air Test and Evaluation Squadron. It will also mark a very rare appearance by a middle school band at a military ceremony.

“So far, I’m a little nervous,” said trumpeter Joel Daniels, 13. “I don’t want to mess up.”

And if the pomp alone isn’t enough to cause some queasiness, the band members will have to deal with the acoustics of an airplane hangar and the eyes of an expected 300 military personnel and 200 guests.

“This is late in the year. It’s the best they’ve sounded,” said band instructor Jeffrey Zalinka, himself a member of the Air National Guard band. “I’m actually very surprised that they would call us, being a middle school band.”

Zalinka wasn’t the only one surprised by the selection.

“The reason they were picked was basically because there were no other bands available,” said VX4 Lt. Cmdr. Ken Gigliotti. “Usually we have a military band play a change of command. It just so happens that none of the bands between here and San Diego and Alameda were available.”

Gigliotti said the high school bands from Agoura Hills to Santa Barbara also had previous engagements. But in the course of calling the high schools, he was referred to De Anza in Ventura.