After an EF3 tornado tore through the community this summer, Valley View High School Band director Shannon Worley put plans for their yearly trip on the back burner.
The May 25 tornado ripped through southern Cooke County, running nearly 50 miles and killing seven people in two manufactured home communities south of Valley View, a rural town with just over 900 residents.
Among the dead was an incoming sophomore in the marching band, Miranda Esparza. A search and rescue team found the 15-year-old — a sweet girl described as the life of the sousaphone section — in the rubble by her mother and younger brother.
All of Worley’s attention went toward ensuring the band would be a refuge for her students.
The director planned to talk as much or as little about the storm as the students wanted. She kept boxes of toiletries — deodorant, face wipes, pads and other sundries — in her office in case they needed them. The goal this year, above all else, was to have fun.
“For the most part,” Worley said in July as summer marching band camp came to close, “they just wanted an escape when they came here — just have fun with their friends and not be in the middle of all of that.”
With the school year now underway, Worley has started planning for a trip this school year. She had held off before because she did not want to place a financial burden on the band’s families, she said. Band boosters set up a GoFundMe campaign to raise donations and help make the trip possible.
Worley said she was working out where the band would go.
Last summer, the band road-tripped south to attend a performance of the Houston Symphony and hit a Main Event arcade. In 2022, the band jaunted to Silver Dollar City, an amusement park in Stone County, Missouri.
Worley said this year has been hard for her students.
Beginning in the summer, The Dallas Morning News attended the band’s rehearsals leading up to their first home football game Aug. 30, when they performed a musical tribute in honor of Miranda, her family and the others taken by the storm.
The News documented the band’s journey navigating the tragedy and their tribute performance at the football game.
“It would be super awesome to still do something for the kids this year,” Worley said last month.
The band boosters set up a GoFundMe campaign to raise donations.
“Despite the destruction and hardship, the community’s spirit remains unbroken, and this trip symbolizes a much-needed respite and celebration of their perseverance,” the boosters wrote.
