Marching in, scrambling out

Pep Band.

A year before a new U.Va. marching band takes the field, the colorful Pep Band has made its last big-audience scramble.  The new marching band endowed this spring through a gift by Carl Smith III (College ’51) and his wife, Hunter, of Charlottesville, will be a boon to recruiting student and faculty musicians, according to Elizabeth Hudson, chair of the music department.  However, its fall 2004 debut also signals the end, as of this fall, of Pep Band appearances at football and basketball games.  The almost 30-year-old band will lose its subsidy from the athletic department but intends to continue as a contracted independent organization, performing at other events.