Pittsburg State University blog

This blog was written by Chris Kelly, associate vice president for university marketing and communication.

I am a movie fanatic. I’ve been hooked on Hollywood ever since my mother took me, at the age of six, to the Booth Theater in Independence to see Star Wars. (By the way, I still think the original Star Wars is one of the top-five movies of all time)

Perhaps it’s because of this fascination that I’m so excited about what happened this week on the Pittsburg State University campus.

A group of Hollywood recording producers made the 1,567 mile trip (I looked it up) to Pittsburg in order to record our very own Pride of the Plains Marching Band for inclusion in an upcoming motion picture.

Think about that for a moment. Pittsburg State University’s marching band is going to be heard in a major motion picture. Okay … that’s pretty cool.  

So how did Hollywood find out about Pittsburg State? It seems that our band director, Doug Whitten, has been friends with Chris Fogel, the Hollywood sound mixing editor, since grade school. They ended up attending the same high school and later went to college together.

When the movie called for a marching band to play a song, Chris called Doug because he wanted an authentic sound. The rest, as they say, is history. (Here’s a behind the scenes look at the day)

It’s amazing how often things like this happen at Pittsburg State University. The friendships and professional relationships of our faculty and staff continuously seem to create incredible opportunities for our students.

It’s one of the reasons I’m so happy to be able to call myself a Gorilla. Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s a hot tub of popcorn and a theater seat calling my name. 

Doug Whitten, director of athletic bands at PSU, directs the Pride of the Plains Marching band on the campus oval during a recording session.