UHS scholar to march in Macy’s Thanksgiving parade

Gabby Chico spends her days marching towards objectives.

Simply wait till you see her on Thanksgiving Day.

That’s getting a bit of bit forward of the narrative, although, so we’ll march again round to that.

Gabby’s objectives: The most important ones overlap, however that’s okay, she stated.

As a result of that’s how she deliberate it.

For one, she needs to be an emergency medical technician and is coaching for it on the Monongalia County Technical Schooling Heart — on prime of her research at College Excessive Faculty.

Just a few mileposts again alongside that route, she additionally thought it might be rewarding to work as a firefighter.

So, she joined the Cheat Lake Volunteer Fireplace Division, the place she retains a full record of duties and tasks on the entrance burner on the station.

Gabby remains to be too younger to go on precise calls, however all that modifications in December, when the united statessenior turns 18 and begins prepping for the examination that may certify her to just do that.

Subsequent fall, she’ll additionally start, in earnest, the pursuit of her final profession purpose — changing into a flight nurse.

That occurs both at WVU, Fairmont State College or Waynesburg College.

She’s been accepted into the nursing applications of all three and is presently vectoring in on the place she needs to go.

Expertise and tenacity, she stated, will outline the flight plan.

“I’ll be a greater nurse, as a result of I’ll know what it’s wish to be an EMT and a volunteer firefighter,” she stated.

“Simply work out what you need to do — then know that you just’re gonna should put within the work.”

Ahead, march

In the event you flip in your TV this Thanksgiving morning, and you recognize the place to look, you’ll see her marching in end result of one among her more-immediate objectives.

Gabby, who auditioned for the honour by way of YouTube, is one among simply 185 musicians in highschool marching bands throughout the nation to be chosen for a spot within the Macy’s Nice American Band.

Macy’s, as within the iconic New York Metropolis division retailer.

This would be the 97^th Thanksgiving for its namesake parade, which for a lot of, indicators the official begin of Christmas throughout the nation.

Gabby got here up enjoying clarinet in the united statesHawks band and is presently a member of its honor guard — the place she’ll anchor within the nationwide assemblage.

The pageantry of the honour guard, with its exact marching and choreography, grabbed her muse and didn’t let go, she stated.

Add within the athleticism and musicianship making up the precise wielding of the flag — you don’t dare miss a cue or let the material contact the pavement — and Gabby knew precisely what she was going to do on soccer Friday nights for the remainder of highschool.

It’s not as simple as it’d look, she stated, of all that wielding, angling and spinning.   

“That pole is wa-a-ay taller than I’m,” she stated.

Balanced on its finish, it stands at 6 ft — “And I’m positively not that,” Gabby stated.

Heartbeat of Herald Sq.

She is, nevertheless, positively jazzed about being within the 2023 version of the Macy’s Nice American Band.

The band is underneath the path of Richard Good, a nationally identified music educator from Auburn College and the one chief it has identified.

It has stepped off each Thanksgiving Day parade since 2006.

That’s 17 years of enjoying for the floats and the visits from Santa (and different celebrities).

Don’t overlook the large balloons.

Snoopy stays the all-time favourite of Gabby, who has watched the parade from her household’s lounge since she was a bit of woman.

For the band that takes its star-turn one time a 12 months, it’s additionally a shared historical past of music, marching and smiles, in an almost three-mile route from Central Park West to 34^th Road and Herald Sq..

Herald Sq. is the place Macy’s is, with Tom Turkey perched over the shop’s entrance and the “Consider” lettering draped midway down the constructing.

On a specifically painted part of Large Apple asphalt in that location, this teeming, tuneful assortment of younger musicians from all throughout the U.S. will park its cadence.

Then, earlier than a mixed viewers of tens of millions, watching and listening in particular person and at house, it can lean into its conventional showstopper: “Strike Up the Band.”

Love tune

From that first 12 months in 1924, the Macy’s parade made it via the Nice Despair, World Battle II and Sept. 11.

New York Metropolis, too, is stuffed with teeming lots — these with direct household ties to bother spots overseas, to not point out the dual towers that after punctuated decrease Manhattan by advantage of their sheer architectural immensity, if nothing else.

Psychologists and different watchers of the human situation say this parade, specifically, doubles as a mass endorphin machine.

The Macy’s parade is the place the multitudes can collect to cheer, to be charmed and to easily really feel good, in unsure instances.

As an EMT-in-training, Gabby understands that instances of crises may also deliver out the humanitarian in our fellow people.

Untold braveness and compassion can, and can, shine via the concern and chaos of the second, she stated.

That’s why she’ll spend a while at Floor Zero, with a non secular, skilled sojourn to the Nationwide September 11 Memorial and Museum.

Gabby needs to pay her respects to the primary responders who rushed into the tumult, making an attempt to save lots of lives, as their world — and everybody else’s — grimly crashed down.

“They had been so courageous,” she stated.

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