In 1997 a very creative man had an idea – a dream that he was determined to turn into reality. Jon Kersten, a former military man and later a government employee working for the post office, had retired and along with his wife, Cathy, was spending most of his time pursuing his dream career – teaching the performance arts and designing field shows for high school bands. As a result of joy he felt from his early life experiences in High School, he had developed a love for the Visual Performing Arts…
In the fall of 2003, FMBC introduced its first Parade Band Competition, which was held at Universal Studios on the day after the FMBC State Championships. University High School became our primary site for the FMBC Semi-Finals and Finals, with Timber Creek High School helping out by hosting the 1A Semi-Finals this year…
2009, Sandie Kersten took over as our new Marketing Director, and immediately started work on designing our new Semi-Finalist patches as well as seeking out new sponsors for our events. She introduced customized FMBC products with the participating school’s name along with the FMBC logo at the Semi-Finals. By the beginning of the performance season we had fourteen corporate sponsors to help us offset the growing costs of the Tropicana Field event…
As one of our Board members was returning to the Dome after helping out at the Gaither Site, he heard a radio station announcer comment that “Traffic was really heavy on Interstate Route 275 going from Tampa to St. Petersburg this afternoon…” and the hapless announcer couldn’t figure out why. Of course we knew – it was hundreds of cars, buses, and equipment trucks coming from the FMBC Semi-Finals in Tampa on their way to watch or to perform at the FMBC Finals at the Tropicana Dome…