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Paisley tours flood-ravaged Kanawha high school

Charleston Gazette-Mail photo by Tom Hindman Paisley takes pictures of the ruined guitars in the Herbert Hoover’s band room.
Charleston Gazette-Mail photo by Tom Hindman
Paisley takes pictures of the ruined guitars in the Herbert Hoover band room.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — For Lilly Nichols, band is more than something she does in her free time. It’s where she met her friends. It’s a home of sorts.

“The band room is my home away from home,” said Nichols, the Herbert Hoover High School band’s field commander and a rising senior clarinet player. “We’re all so close. We spend so much time together.”

Noah Rohr, a senior saxophone player, has been in band since middle school. He described the group as a close-knit family.

When water rose to 7 feet deep in their school, that home was ruined. Like the rest of the school’s first floor, Herbert Hoover’s band room was destroyed. The band lost everything, from sheet music and group photos to uniforms, instruments and a trailer they’d planned to sell.

 Band director Meleah Fisher has been making a list of everything from the music department that was destroyed. So far, it includes 20 guitars and 65 uniforms purchased about nine years ago — they were practically new in the world of marching bands, she said. The uniforms alone would cost between $30,000 and $40,000 to replace, Fisher said.

On Thursday, country music star Brad Paisley joined U.S. Sens. Joe Manchin and Shelley Moore Capito in a walk through the still-muddy halls of the high school to see its band room and gymnasium.

Paisley has raised nearly $300,000 for flood relief…

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