Student story: Tom Tom and the Navigators

By Brooke Urzendowski

Michael Huff and Joey Wenberg glanced nervously back and forth to each other as the announcer slowly made her way up to the podium. This was it.

Along with Sean Gross and Matt Riedl, all their hard work came down to this moment. Deep breath. Flint Hills Student Publications director Linda Puntney pursed her lips in front of the protruding microphone and broke the silence: “And the winner is…”

The boys' band, Tom Tom and the Navigators, had prepared three hours for its performance in the Rock Band Challenge Monday night and felt confident with its chances.

“We listened to a few YoutTube videos before to get a feel for the song we were going to do,” Huff said.

“I ate some ice cream and did a basic throat massage to warm up my pipes,” Riedl added.

The energy in the room was contagious, and you could feel the tension among the band members. Huff scrolled through the list of songs and landed on “The Middle” by Jimmie Eat World. All eyes were set on Tom Tom and the Navigators as they anxiously awaited the judges' cue to begin.

Huff began with a basic beat on the drums, while Wenberg and Gross slowly strummed on the bass and guitar, flooding the room with the upbeat and familiar melody. It wasn’t until Riedl’s vocal opening to “Hey, don’t write yourself off yet/ It’s only in your head you feel left out/ or looked down on,” that Tom Tom and the Navigators had truly captured the audience.

“I felt like a caterpillar coming out of his cocoon,” Riedl said. “I knew there were quality bands, but I was confident that our band had the stuff to succeed.”

Even the judges couldn’t help smiling, and for good reason. Not only did the group have all the swagger of your average teenage garage rock band, each member completed the song without fail.

“I played the entire song on lefty mode and expert level, it was pretty tough” Wenberg said, adding that his experience playing the bass in a real band helped him overcome this hurdle.

But it was the most vital member of the group who came through as the secret weapon --Tom Tom. Tom Tom, a cardboard cutout of the real Tom Wittler who was not at camp this year, stood watching the band with a reassuring and friendly smile.

“Tom made the band; he is the band,” Huff said. “Without him, I don’t think I could’ve done it.”

“Without Tom we would have been as lost as Christopher Columbus,” Riedl added.

As the song wrapped up, the last note hung in the air slightly longer than the others. For a split second, the room grew silent before the thunder of screams and applause rumbled throughout the ballroom. Tom Tom and the Navigators confidently strolled off, high-fiving the audience on the way to their seats.

“We were pretty much the best band there, no competition,” Gross said. “There truly wasn’t any question.”

Tom Tom even did a little crowd surfing. As the students propelled his life-size cardboard body over the audience, all the band could do was hope and wait for the results the next day.

“And the winner is…” Puntney announced approximately 13 hours later, “Tom Tom and the Navigators!”

“I was extremely happy we won cause we got a little microphone and blowup guitar for prizes,” Michael said. "All of our hard work paid off."

Brooke Urzendowski is a senior at Marian High School and a student in the advanced writing class at the Flint Hills Publications Workshop.