Music Director Makes a Wish Come True for Austin Senior
By Andrea Negri | Wednesday, November 12, 2008 9:58 AM
When Make-A-Wish Foundation employees heard Liberal Arts and Sciences Academy senior Alec Gramann’s wish — to lead the band at a UIL state marching contest — they wondered if it could be done.
“There is no way this is ever going to happen. What’s his second wish?” Kathryn Draper, program services assistant at Make-A-Wish, recalled workers saying. “This is just something that’s going to take a huge amount of time.”
But UIL music director Richard Floyd wasn’t so sure it was an impossible wish.
“From the beginning I felt certain, it was something that we could do,” he said. “My primary goal was to find a time in the schedule that would allow the largest possible audience to help make Alec's wish come [true].”
Alec, the head drum major of his Austin high school band, was diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer, a little more than a year ago. Up until then, his mother Mary Kragie said, he was a happy, healthy teenager with no symptoms — in fact, she said, he had run several miles on Austin’s hike-and-bike trail the week before.
On a Friday in October 2007, Alec woke up with intense pain in his chest and back. A chest X-ray at the emergency room revealed a shadow, Alec said, and follow-up tests, then a biopsy, confirmed the diagnosis.
Alec said he was surprised by his reaction when he was told he had Ewing’s sarcoma.
“I really just took the information as it came to me,” he said. “I wasn't immediately shocked or depressed or angry or sad. I obviously wasn't very happy about it, but I had the mentality of, ‘Hey, there isn't anything I can do to undo this, so all that can be done is just do what I need to do so I can get back to my life.’"
His treatment included chemotherapy and surgery, Kragie said. While he was undergoing treatment, the family received support from teachers, neighbors and the band.
“The LBJ band was an unwavering and faithful source of support for Alec and all of us,” Kragie said. “I can remember one day at the Dell Children’s Hospital that the volunteers at the information desk, came up to the pediatric oncology floor (4 North) to find out ‘just who was in Room 419’ because he had so many presents and visitors — almost all of whom were Alec’s friends from the band.”
Kragie also said her son’s prognosis is now considered “excellent.”
“Alec was very fortunate that his tumor was localized. His MRIs, bone scans and bone marrow tests showed that the cancer had not spread to any other part of his body,” she said, adding that he now sees the doctor every six weeks and has scans every three months for follow-up.
Due to his diagnosis, Alec had the opportunity to work with Make-A-Wish, which serves children from 2 ? to 18 years old. When Make-A-Wish representative Rhonda Johnson came to ask Alec about his wish, he remembered his “extraordinary experiences” in the band.
“When I was diagnosed and unable to participate in band to the extent that I had been, I was extremely disappointed,” he said. “Adding to my disappointment, the band had just missed qualifying for our State Marching competition. My freshman year, I had listened to the seniors and juniors talk about what an amazing, once-in-a-lifetime experience the Alamodome had been. Those stories stuck with me through all three marching seasons, and when my last chance had passed, I was convinced that goal wasn't ever going to be reached.
When Alec met Johnson the Alamodome was the only thing he could think of. “The band had helped me so much through my treatment,” he said. “I wanted to be able to share my one wish with the organization that supported me through everything.”
Kragie said the logistics of granting her son’s wish — getting the band, their instruments, the color guard and parents to San Antonio for the event, plus coordinating with UIL and the Austin school district — were immense.
“We made sure that he had a ‘back-up’ wish just in case this very ambitious wish could not be realized,” she said. “We knew Alec’s life has been so enriched by his band experience and his band family that we kept our fingers crossed that this wish could really come true for him.”
Even Alec soon realized that making his wish come true could be complicated.
“When I made my wish, I hadn't thought about the logistics of getting an exhibition performance time and transporting the entire 160-member marching band down to San Antonio,” Alec said. “Both my band director and parents let me know that my wish would be extremely difficult to grant. After I talked to Rhonda [Johnson], I tried to put it out of my mind so if by chance it wasn't granted, I wouldn't have gotten my hopes up.”
For UIL, however, the logistics were not that complicated.
“Organizing state level events of this magnitude is part of what we do,” Floyd said. “Once we knew that we could take care of the logistics it was simply a matter of integrating the LBJ band’s warm-up, field entry and performance into the overall contest schedule.”
Alec said walking into the stadium was what he looked forward to most.
“It's when the adrenaline starts pumping, the crowd starts cheering, and you can here the announcements but not understand the low booming voice echoing around the stadium,” he said. “When we actually got to line up to go in, everything was how I expected, but magnified a million times. The roar in that arena was unbelievable as we marched in. It felt like my heart was about to beat its way out of my chest in excitement.”
Floyd said that at the end of the 3A preliminaries on Nov. 3, when the LBJ band took the field, up to 10,000 people could’ve been in the Alamodome.
Seeing the faces of the students who helped her son during the months of treatment was what Kragie said she had looked forward to the most.
“That band ‘energy and excitement’ was the one of the best medicines Alec could ever have received,” she said. “Seeing Alec acknowledge the LBJ band when he extended his arms towards them at the end of the performance was a sight we will never, ever forget.”
Floyd said that Alec’s wish said a lot about the student’s character.
“Most people, when given the opportunity to make a wish of this stature, tend to request something much more personal such as trip to Disney World, attendance at a big athletic event or the chance to meet a famous person,” he said. “Alec didn't ask for any of those but chose to make a wish that included his ‘band family’ in a very special once in a lifetime performance. To me this is a powerful testament to Alec's character and the unifying spirit that music tends to bring into our lives.”