'An honor': St. Augustine Marching 100 traveling to France for D-Day 80th anniversary

For the Allies’ D-Day invasion of Nazi-occupied France on June 6, 1944, New Orleans supplied the landing crafts called Higgins boats.

For D-Day’s 80th anniversary, New Orleans is sending the St. Augustine High School Marching 100.

Some 112 members of the famed marching band and four dozen chaperones are scheduled to fly to France on June 3.

During its week abroad, the Marching 100 will participate in D-Day commemorations at the American cemeteries in Normandy and Brittany. Jude Villavaso, a rising 10th grader, is slated to deliver a keynote address in French and English.

The Marching 100 will also march in an anniversary parade through the French town of Sainte Mere Eglise and perform at the Jardin d'Acclimatation, an amusement park in Paris.

More than a year of planning and fundraising preceded the trip. Over $700,000 was raised to cover flights, lodging, food, ground transportation and other costs.

It is the most ambitious field trip ever undertaken by St. Augustine since its 1951 founding by Josephite priests as a college preparatory school for young Black males. The students will represent their school, and New Orleans, on a world stage.

“I didn’t get my passport until I was 25 years of age,” said St. Augustine president and CEO Aulston Taylor, a 1998 graduate. “These young men have received their passports at 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. They now will be able to see the world much earlier than their president. That’s a beautiful thing.

“While we love representing the city of New Orleans and learning in our New Orleans culture and environment, I also want to give our young men access to other places, for them to see how other people live, eat, move, communicate. We want our young men to grow and ascend to leadership positions around the world."

St. Augustine is not the only New Orleans institution intersecting with the D-Day 80th anniversary. The National WWII Museum is hosting 475 guests for a 10-day cruise aboard the Seabourn Ovation that stops along the northwest coast of France during the 80th anniversary week.

One of several trips the museum’s educational travel program administers annually, the Ovation will sail with several World War II veterans and historians aboard.

The museum also played a key role in facilitating St. Augustine’s journey. National WWII Museum president and CEO Stephen Watson connected the school with museum benefactors Peggy and Timber Floyd, who underwrote more than half the cost of the band’s trip.

“They’re quite taken by all of this and were just delighted to help,” Watson said. “It’s a really incredible opportunity. What an experience for these students.”

The Marching 100 will be “great ambassadors for our city, our state, our country,” Watson said. “I had the privilege of going to Normandy when I was in high school and I know the impact it had on me. I really hope that, in addition to their performances, they can really take in the significance of why they’re there.”

How it happened

Don Francisco, St. Aug Purple Knight class of ‘83, set the Marching 100’s foray to France in motion.

Fluent on fife, flute and other instruments, Francisco spent 30 years as an Army musician before retiring as a sergeant first class. Historic Programs, a nonprofit that recruits marching bands for commemorative events overseas, invited him to participate in the D-Day 80th anniversary.

“This was a great opportunity for me,” Francisco thought, “but what about my young Purple brothers who have never been out of the country?”

He suggested to Marching 100 band director Ray Johnson Sr. — a drum major when Francisco was a member of the band — that St. Aug should apply to participate in the D-Day 80th anniversary.

Johnson submitted an application to Historic Programs in January 2023. Within days, St. Aug was accepted.

“They’ll do stuff that people don’t get to do in a lifetime,” Francisco said of the students. “To say they marched in the D-Day parade…that’s powerful. I couldn’t be happier for them.”

The school’s administration formed a planning committee. The Rev. Tony Ricard, St. Aug’s campus ministry leader and a 1982 graduate, and Mary Stortz, the business manager in the school's finance office, sorted through the daunting logistics of housing, feeding and transporting 162 people. The planning itself “has been an amazing journey,” Ricard said.

More than 90% of bandmembers didn’t have passports. On a Saturday, passport agents came to the St. Aug campus to walk families through the application process.

“It’s good to have Purple Knight friends in certain places, and we had one at the passport agency,” Taylor said. “We were able to get it all done together at one time.”

Louis Carr, one of Taylor’s mentors, reached out to his friend Brett Hart, president of United Airlines. United accommodated the St. Aug traveling party on two flights and provided discounts.

“They’re taking care of us,” Taylor said. “I am totally in debt to United Airlines for their wonderful support of this journey.”

Preparations were not without drama and heartbreak. Less than two weeks before departure, Taylor called the parents of 11 bandmembers to inform them that their sons’ final grades disqualified them from making the trip.

“Summer school starts June 3. We fly out June 3,” Taylor said. “I believe summer school is more important for them than being on this trip. They have to get their affairs in order, and they will.

“I promised those students that there will be more opportunities to be a part of beautiful experiences with their band. But they’ve got to take care of their business in the classroom first.”

Johnson, the band director, agreed with the tough love approach. “They’ve got to learn,” he said. “It’s all part of life. That’s the real world. You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.”

He hopes no other students drop out in the days before departure. The count is 112 bandmembers “right now,” Johnson said. “There’s all kind of stuff that can happen.”

Crash course on D-Day

At 8 a.m. on the first day of summer break, the Marching 100 boarded four school buses at St. Aug's 7th Ward campus. Dressed in matching purple warm-ups, they disembarked at National WWII Museum for a crash course on D-Day.

Rodolphe Sambou, the Consul General of France in Louisiana, greeted them. “You’re going to a place where you will see graves of soldiers who fought for something very important,” Sambou said. “Thank you for your contribution to this event.”

Two days earlier in their band room, they'd watched a PowerPoint on D-Day prepared by Kate and Andy Jones, supporters of both the museum and the school.

At the museum on May 23, staffer Maddie Roach asked the musicians to imagine being Allied commanders planning D-Day, the largest amphibious assault in history. Where should troops land? Should they set out on a full moon or no moon? At high tide or low tide? Should they divide their forces? Aren’t you guys, as a band, more powerful when you all play together, Roach asked.

Describing the German coastal defenses in video game terms, she said, “You know what land mines do — y’all play Call of Duty.”

LaToya Bailey Williams, the museum’s director of teaching and learning, suggested the students share pictures from overseas on social media: “People need to see people like us traveling the world."

Gifted with books and baseball caps, the students dispersed into the museum. Some breezed through the exhibits. Others stopped to study them.

Douglas Carey Jr., a Marching 100 color guard leader bound for Tulane University in the fall, peered at a soldier’s journal encased in glass. “Their sacrifice is our success,” he said.

Tenor saxophonist and woodwinds section leader Jhairen Wilson drew a parallel between army units and the Marching 100. “You have to stick together,” he said. “There are no individuals.”

Before departing, the bandmembers will learn the patriotic "Hymn to the Fallen," which they'll perform in France with a mass band made up mostly of college students.

“Something as huge as this….a little school from a neighborhood in New Orleans traveling halfway around the world…it’s quite an honor,” Johnson said.

Just as a previous generation of Marching 100 alumni boasts of performing at the Super Bowl, the current bandmembers will have their own story to tell about the D-Day anniversary in France.

“They will be a part of that Marching 100 history,” Johnson said.

He and Taylor are confident their students will make the school, and New Orleans, proud.

“There’s a high level of expectation that comes with the representation of our school,” Taylor said. “We welcome that pressure.”

Reporter Keith Spera and photographer Chris Granger will be in France next week covering the D-Day 80th anniversary commemoration.

Editor's note: The names of museum benefactors Peggy and Timber Floyd were stated incorrectly in the original version of this story.