Dana Branham

Dana Branham — From Marching Musician to Gung Ho Journo

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KL: How long have you been working at the Daily?

DB: Since my Freshman year. So this is 3rd year at the Daily. I applied for the Daily over the summer before my Freshman year. I had gotten an email from Judy that just kind of mentioned that maybe I could be a candidate to do that. So I was very excited and I applied and did an interview over email for the position and I got it. And I was like, “Man this is such a big deal. I remember talking to my parents and they were just like ‘Wow… working at a real newspaper now,’ and it’s kinda true but… So I started as a reporter on the news desk. I wanted to be on the Arts and Entertainment desk.

KL: Really?

DB: Yeah. That’s what I applied for but they were like, “no we need news reporters and you can be a news reporter. And I was like, “well OK.”

KL: Had you done that in secondary school?

DB: Yeah, I had done that in high school. So in high school I joined my newspaper staff also my freshman year. I wrote just whatever I could in high school. I liked writing features and that’s what I thought the A&E desk was for which is not quite exactly what it was for so I got to write the features I wanted on the news desk. But I thought they’d put me on a different desk. But yeah in high school I liked writing features and taking photos. I would take photos at football games, that was what I loved. I dunno. I went to all sorts of sporting events. I didn’t really understand the sporting events but I was like “these are great photos.” I didn’t really understand what I was doing.

I’ve never really understood sports in terms of I don’t know what the game is, like, I don’t know how to play the game. When I’m watching football I’m watching the score so I can know how my friends are going to be. I can be like, “oh the score is this, my friends will be happy or they’ll sad.” It’s never like, “oh what a great play!” Like, I have no idea.

But I like sports as a community. And I think that’s what I liked in high school I don’t know. Highschool football in Texas. There is quite a bit of community around it and it’s just a fun environment. I liked going but I didn’t really ever want to be in the student section. I had been in the band and I had done that for —

KL: Did you march around the field‽

DB: Yeah.

KL: What instrument did you play?

DB: I played saxophone. I started playing in the 6th grade.

I was so bad. Like, sooo bad.

KL: Did you start on the saxophone?

DB: I could start right on saxophone. But they did have us do auditions. They would give you the instrument mouthpiece and you would try to make a sound on the mouthpiece. I wanted to play flute at first. I was like, “flutes are so dainty, they’re so pretty,” but I got really light-headed and so they were like, “yeah, flutes are not for you. You don’t have the lung capacity.” Then I tried the saxophone. And I wanted the saxophone more than the flute for sure, and I couldn’t make a sound on the mouthpiece and I was getting really frustrated. I finally made some squeaky sounds and they were like, “That’s not great.” And they had me try out on trumpet and they were like, “You’re pretty good on trumpet, you should do that.” And I was like, “No. Trumpet is for boys.”

I had my dad write a letter to the band director. “I will personally help Dana be a better saxophonist.” I was just really bad and for the first two weeks of band I couldn’t make a sound on the instrument still.

I was pretty much always last chair in band, and I didn’t really ever get to a point where I was really good. I probably peaked in 8th grade., I just practice so hard in eighth grade, cause I was like, “Band is my life. This is what I’m gonna do.”

KL: Really?!

DB: Yeah! I like, I dunno, I had these kinda like, half-hearted dreams of like maybe being a jazz musician one day, but I couldn’t do that because I can’t improv. Like, I cannot at all.

I would practice my blues scales and do all of this stuff. My dad was saying, “if you practice your blues scales then you’ll just know the notes you’ll play.” And I was like, no, I could play the blues scale, I could just play it just up and down. Even if I was reading jazz music, I never got the point where I could swing it the way I was supposed to. So that didn’t pan out.

KL: That’s sad.

DB: But it was fun and I don’t regret it. I did band through my sophomore year of highs school. So freshman and sophomore year did march.

KL: So you were two-timing; you were doing journalism and band?

DB: Yes. And then, I was like, “I’m quitting band.” I got very frustrated with band because I didn’t like the organization of the band program. I liked playing. I still miss playing with a group.

Playing in the group, it’s just fun. I was talking about sports as a community…

KL: Was this a team sport for you?

DB: It kind of was. And marching band definitely felt like that, more than playing in the chairs.

KL: The team-work, the synchronization, everyone moving together?

DB: I was not a very good marcher either. I got better. My freshman year, I wasn’t really good.

So we had summer band, which was just hell. It’s the first two weeks before school started. So this is August, in Texas and you’re outside. It was so hot and people would get sick and people would throw up. I threw up one time.

KL: From heat?

DB: From heat and I shouldn’t have eaten really sugary muffins for breakfast but I did.

So I hated summer band. So I didn’t get a spot in my freshman marching show. I was very sad. I was a shadow, so you basically are this extra person on the practice field. You’re not really on the field most of the time. I’d stand off the field at games and things which was very sad. It was me and all the people who broke their legs. They can’t march. I can march. I guess I’m not that good. I didn’t get a spot until this girl that I was shadowing failed a class and then she was ineligible to compete so I took her spot. I don’t know. Looking back, I was so happy that she failed, which is such an awful thing. But we’re friends now. I see her sometimes when I go back home. We’re okay. We were just like enemies back then. It was pretty serious.

KL: So what was the tipping point? What made you finally decide to quit?

DB: I don’t know if there was a tipping point. I was like, unhappy that I didn’t have a spot that Freshman year. Sophomore year I didn’t get to march with my section… that was just so frustrating and I hated it. I dunno. It stopped being fun at some point. There were certain parts of it that I would look forward to, like certain pieces I thought were really fun but at some point it was just like, it just lost the fun for me and I always wanted to be doing something else. I always wanted to be in the newspaper lab and I always wanted to be working on my stories. I would try to skip band all the time for newspaper. Like, I tried to get my advisor then to write me passes to go to the newspaper lab and she was just like “I can’t do that. I can’t write you out of your other classes.” So that never really quite worked out but I would try often to get out of there.

But I don’t know if there was ever like a moment that was like, “This is it. That’s is the end.”

KL: Just slowly like a balancing of the scales where journalism became the weightier thing?

DB: Yeah it did. I was like “I can stick this out through the end of the year. Like, I don’t need to quit right now. But I’m not also inclined to sign up again.”