Like many 12-year-old girls, Kathleen Ferrie, a seventh-grader at Ledyard Middle School, credits her friends as an important source of support and inspiration. Unlike many of those peers, Kathleen hopes soon to become a sergeant.
She joined the Nutmeg Fife and Drum Corps three years ago and is now its most experience fife player. She hopes when ranks are next assigned, she’ll be the corps’s Lead Fife Sergeant. During parades, sergeants are responsible for making sure everyone is in step and ensuring the lines are straight, she said.
Kathleen has traveled across New England to participate in parades and musters in Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire. “We pretty much go all around New England. We have parades almost every weekend in the summer,” she said.
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Every October Kathleen and other corps members spend an extended weekend in Washington D.C. for a workshop with The Old Guard, which is the President's Fife and Drum Corps. They are active-duty servicemen and servicewomen in the Army. They perform for dignitary's and other guests of the President.
That's pretty exciting, but if you ask Kathleen, the most exciting event she’s participated in is St. Patrick’s Day parade in New York City. In March, Kathleen and the corps will travel to New York for her second year.
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“The parade is really long, and there are so many people, we actually get to watch a lot of the parade,” she said. In other, smaller, parades, she said they often don’t get to see any of the parade itself.
She has a repertoire of some 50 songs memorized, as fife and drum corps members do not use the music holders sometimes used by marching bands. The songs are mostly from the 1700s, which she learned at Fife and Drum musters and by downloading them from the Internet, she said.
“In a typical parade, we have to play the songs that everyone knows, so we usually play about 24. Sometimes, I’m the only one playing, and that’s a lot of pressure,” she said.
Her musical ability extends beyond the fife; Kathleen plays the flute in the Ledyard Middle School band. She’s been studying that instrument for about three years as well.
“Most of the notes are really different,” she said. “There are less holes on a fife, so you have to do more with your fingers to make the same notes.”
In addition to her musical accomplishments, Kathleen is also an active equestrienne. She rides English-style and is beginning to work on jumping with Gypsy, a thoroughbred, at Outback Stables, where Kathleen also helps care for the animals.
“I bring in all the horses, feed them, sweep up after I feed them, and do whatever they need me to do,” said Kathleen, who is an honor roll student.
She hopes one day to become an equestrian veterinarian, and she credits her friends with inspiring her to pursue her dreams. “My friends really support me a lot,” she said.
