In the searing heat of an August afternoon, the St. Michael Cardinals Marching Band takes an impromptu break as students pause to recite the Prayer to St. Michael, broadcast over the school’s intercom.
Afterward, the 17 students quickly line up in formation as band director Josh Walker guides rehearsals for the band’s upcoming halftime performance of “Phantom of the Opera.”
“We are very small and that is something we have to account for in everything we do,” said 17-year-old band major Sam Johnson, a senior at the 10-year-old high school in Fairhope, east of Alabama State Route 181…