METAMORA - The Evergreen High School marching band will perform Monday in the Liberty Bowl.

The Evergreen musicians will no doubt have a grand time in Memphis.

They'll visit Graceland, and then play their hearts out at a New Year's Eve football game watched by millions.

Not bad for a band that only nine years ago was a ragtag bunch of 13 kids.

That was 1992, when Chris Lyons became band director at the rural Fulton County school.

“We had a couple saxophones, a couple trumpets, three drums, some flutes and clarinets. Wait, maybe only one clarinet,” Mr. Lyons recalled.

“We hardly had enough in the marching band to form a big letter E for Evergreen, except maybe in Braille,” Mr. Lyons said.

“We could only form the school name in Morse code.”

The entire band, and all instruments, could almost squeeze into a van.

“We made sounds but we didn't do much marching,” Mr. Lyons said.

“When we played on the field, we always faced the stands. If we turned around, people couldn't hear us and thought we were done.

The tune has changed at Evergreen High School. There now are 112 musicians in the band - 31 percent of the student body, Mr. Lyons points out proudly.

“That's unusual growth, considering that a school usually might have 25 percent, sometimes just 10 percent, of its population in a band,” he said.

It's the first Evergreen band to play in a college bowl game.

“The band grew because we worked extremely hard and began to have success and do well in district contests,” Mr. Lyons said.

“We encouraged kids to stick with it even when it wasn't much fun and when we weren't very good.

“Kids began to be attracted to band and we've had tremendous support from the administration and the community.”

Mr. Lyons thinks it might be harder to get that support because Evergreen is a consolidated district, not in a town.

“In a Maumee or a Swanton, people are proud of school bands but out here in the country, at a consolidation, it's harder to keep up with the Joneses.”

Heidi Keller, 16, a sophomore, is the drum major and leader of the band, its first student director.

“I like that a lot,” she said. “Everybody likes being in band, but the reason we improve is because Mr. Lyons pushes us to be as good as we can be.”

“We tell kids if they want to be in band, it's not all they can do,” Mr. Lyons explains.

“We have lot of kids who also play sports and do other activities.”

He said the band includes 10 football players, including the captain, Luke Nagy, a dozen volleyball players, and “half the cheerleading squad.”

Since being invited to the Liberty Bowl, band members have worked to raise money for the trip. “If something wasn't moving, we sold it,” Mr. Lyons said.

Students peddled pizzas, coffee mugs, and candy, and held a patron drive, Heidi said.

“I'm sure it was the same people buying the same things, over and over, to help us,” she said.

Chris Helle became assistant band director in 1997 when the band had grown to 74 members.

“I can't wait to put the bus in gear and take off,” he said.

The band was scheduled to leave northwest Ohio today.

It will perform Saturday. in a marching contest, and march in a parade on Sunday.

At halftime of Monday's Brigham Young University-Louisville football game, the Evergreen musicians will make music in good company, with Three Dog Night and other invited bands.

The 4 p.m. game will be seen on ESPN cable television.

First Published December 27, 2001, 1:13 p.m.