4 Students Who Drank Lose Niche at Olympics

Four El Dorado High School band members who had flown to Australia to perform in opening ceremonies for the 2000 Olympic Games were sent home after being caught drinking, authorities said Tuesday.

The three boys and one girl, whose names were not released, were ousted by band director Richard Watson and other school representatives, officials said.

“The whole thing turned out to be painful for everyone,” said Karen Wilkins, principal of the Placentia school. “But once they violated the rules, there was no other choice” but to send them home. She said she also was troubled by school representatives’ disclosing the matter to the media.

The incident happened within 48 hours of the students’ Sept. 2 arrival in Sydney. They were among 400 Orange County high school musicians scheduled to play in the 2,000-member U.S. marching band at opening ceremonies Friday. Irvine High and La Palma’s Kennedy High also sent performers. Each student had to raise $3,000 for the trip.

Last summer, all of the Orange County musicians and some other U.S. bands were dropped from the invitation list when Australians realized the Olympic band would consist of 500 Australians, 200 Japanese and 1,300 Americans.

But after letters from lawyers to Olympic officials and worries over a possible lawsuit from a company organizing the Olympic band, members of the games’ Sydney Organizing Committee relented.

At El Dorado Tuesday, students had varied reactions to the news that four of the young musicians had been flown home.

“They wasted a great opportunity they worked hard to get,” freshman Amber Long said. “But I guess its fair. . . . They’re not supposed to be drinking.”

Others saw it differently.

“They should have been given at least a warning,” said Jaimie Guerra, a sophomore who knows one of the students. “This is not fair. They worked their butts off to be there.”