The Daily Jeffersonian
Cambridge, Ohio, USA - Those who chance to hear sounds of the Caribbean wafting around the village, Cambridge or Zanesville should not be too surprised. Their ears are not deceiving them. There's a new band in town and it's bringing the music of the tropics to southeastern Ohio.
Credit the East Muskingum Local School District....Now, welcome PanJGea and give your ears a treat.
"I was blown away by them," said Jeffersonian photographer, Michael Neilson. "I've been on Caribbean cruises and I've never heard a band as good as this one."
...."It's been something I have wanted to do since I chose to be a music educator," Kelsey said. "It was something I was involved in in school. I was in the inaugural steel band at Dover High School, so it was always something I had in the back of my mind."
...."I thought [the steel drum band] would be a great fit for it and had plans to eventually talk to the Boosters about looking at a five-year plan to make it happen," Kelsey said.
But the administrator had taken Kelsey's "joke" seriously.
"It was less than a week later that he came back to me and said he had found a way to start it now. Our booster organization jumped on the idea."
Just before Christmas, Kelsey contacted pan maker (steel drums are called, "pans") Kyle Dunleavy in Philadelphia and said, "Can you cut me a deal if I buy a full orchestra?"
Dunleavy accepted the offer.
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