This piece was co-written by Carter Bohart and Emelia Delaporte. She’s very glad he came up with this idea.
With the end of the 2024 marching season came the last time that we would march on the same field, play in the same band and partake in some of our favorite traditions together. Alumni weekends may come, but they won’t be the same. Our three years of marching together have held so many memories in an abundance of locations – behind the gates of the MVC, up in the stands at Lane Stadium, around town in Blacksburg and beyond.
Carter, Erin, Emy, Brad (left to right) at Band Banquet 2024
We met during the 2022 Edition of the Marching Virginians. Carter was a first-year student and Emy was a second-year student. We became an inseparable group including two other second-year piccolos, Brad Vezzetti and Erin Stevenson, adopting Carter as “our rookie.” The group chat is aptly named “impulsive pix.”
We started with simple adventures that quickly morphed into less common outings – showing Carter around campus and sitting in Emy’s car in the Regal parking lot after a late-night movie turned into boat ramp star-gazing on the New River, running back and forth across the state line in Glen Lyn, multiple trips to the two-state city of Bluefield and more. We trimmed Emy’s hair in Erin’s bathroom once, though not very well. We tried to drink a whole gallon of sweet tea at McDonald’s.
We huddled together and kept warm during those brutal “first winters” up on Chicken Hill during those cold October rehearsals, and drove each other insane with our 1:00 AM text messages. When the need to work prevailed over the desire to engage in the free-time capers that we had deemed “jailbreakin,” we studied in Squires for hours after closing on Tuesday nights.
Erin, a piccolo rank captain, graduated last year and has been able to visit a couple of times. The more recent visit found us catching up over Cookout and visiting yet another boat ramp to drop big rocks off a bridge and wade in the water, with an attentive eye on the moon. Brad is here with us, and will leave Virginia Tech alongside Emy in May. Carter stays on, working towards completing his master’s degree.
Photo by Anna Payne, taken in Lane Stadium.
From Carter
I want to thank the Marching Virginians for the opportunities I was given during my undergraduate studies, the friendships that were made, the family that were formed, and therefore the greatest support network I could have asked for during my time in college. It is so interesting to look back at the dynamics of what a freshman in a new state and new town is like, and I am so glad I met my adventurous wilderness explorer friend, my biology friend who just wants to be an EMT like me so bad, and my quiet friend who, after watching in concert, I still am not sold on the fact he plays the bassoon.
While I will be in Blacksburg and the Marching Virginians for another season, I have no idea what I will do without my best friends by my side. Probably drag them all back for Alumni Day regardless of if they are available or not, or possibly FaceTiming them through rehearsal so they are forced to continue rehearsing. Only time will tell. Yet, I cannot be anything but thankful for this amazing group of people and how the Marching Virginians brought us together. While this group splits to be officially scattered across the east coast, I know where all our hearts lay; in an impulsive group chat and a turf field atop Chicken Hill.
Photo by Daniel Long, taken near Capon Bridge, WV.
From Emy
impulsive pix has been my center of gravity in Blacksburg. The fall of 2022, when we first met Carter, followed a summer of a lot of self-discovery that left me floundering a bit about who I was, what I wanted and how to get it once I got back to campus. Magnetization to Erin had occurred the previous winter at the Pinstripe Bowl, and to Brad slowly over that summer about DCI and abandoned buildings, through lots of Wikipedia links. Carter was the missing piece of the puzzle and it all clicked from there. I’ll admit that when we first met him, I was excited to have an underclassman that I considered in my care, and promptly labeled his contact “Houseplant.” Realistically, he’s taken just as much, if not more, care of me.
Carter has been my parallel in ambition, passion and demand for things to be done right. Knowing him has made me more assured in my standards of labor and my belief in good things to come. We temper each other in the best way. I hope he’s ready for a lot of voicemails, and I hope that the group chat is ready for many more late night messages lacking in necessary context, for the sake of the bit. The Marching Virginians gave me these people and I’m sincerely grateful for it. I’m likewise grateful for the chance to see what our friendships look like without it. It has been a pleasure to serve as your MCO these past two years, and to play piccolo for you.
Thank you, Marching Virginians, for all you have given us across the years! DEUCES!
All our love,
Emy, 2023-2025 Marketing & Communications Officer
Carter, 2024-2025 Piccolo Section Leader and Marching with the Virginians Blogger
Emy and Carter on the West Virginia border in (the now former) town of Glen Lyn in fall 2023.