The band played on ...on the beach

The Defiance (Ohio) High School marching band (featured in the Homefront Dec. 30), racked up over $30,000 of unanticipated expenses after performing in the 1999 Rose Parade. Nearly half the 266 band members and adult chaperones were grounded in Los Angeles for four extra days when a Midwestern snowstorm shut down air travel. The rest of the band, booked on other flights, experienced delays in Dallas and Chicago.