Ameriah Lockett (above) sings with the Marching Salukis during the Oct. 17 homecoming halftime show, and drum majors (below, from left to right) Ainsley Pierce, Charley Woodsum and Harrison Braddy line up ahead of the homecoming parade. (Photos by Erasmus Tornye and Tamarah Cook)
October 23, 2026
SIU’s Marching Salukis find their voice
CARBONDALE, Ill. — Southern Illinois University Carbondale’s Marching Salukis are changing what their band looks like. This fall, a singer joined them on the field for the first time in the band’s known history, and three drum majors are leading out front for the second year in a row.
The singer is Ameriah Lockett, a senior musical theater major from Urbana, Illinois, who has performed with the band at home football games this season, including homecoming on Oct. 17.
Ricky Spears, assistant professor and director of the Marching Salukis, said both changes are helping build a stronger sense of community among the band’s approximately 155 students, including about 65 freshmen.
A new voice
Lockett was a drum major and section leader in her high school marching band and hoped to join the Marching Salukis when she arrived at SIU. However, participation in the band seemed incompatible with her musical theater obligations.
When Spears opened auditions for a singer to join the band, Lockett — between productions at the time — took the chance. Spears said the competition was close, with strong singers from both inside and outside the School of Music. Lockett’s audition was one of the last he received.
After she sang with the band, Spears said the decision was made. “There was a lot of magic that came from that interaction,” he said.
For Lockett, the role was an opportunity to return to something she had missed.
“It’s nice to get a chance to be back in the environment of marching band,” she said.
At first, Spears didn’t know Lockett had marched in high school. It became clear in rehearsals, where she quickly picked up the band’s timing and adjusted her phrasing to fit into the drill.
Spears said a singer with the band has to connect with the musicians around them and the fans in the stands at the same time. Lockett’s theater training shows in the way she talks to a crowd and gets people on their feet. “That takes a very special personality type to be able to entertain an audience that way,” he said.
Lockett said she sees her job much the same way. “You’re selling marching band as a singer.”
Stepping onto the field, she said, feels like the start of a racing video game, when the countdown ends and everything takes off at once. “You press go, and the game kind of explodes in front of you.”
That burst is what Lockett said draws her to performing live. It unlocks her creativity and gives her room to play. “There’s a certain freedom to it,” she said.
For a band with decades of tradition, the change hasn’t gone unnoticed. In recent weeks, community members have told Lockett they’ve never seen a singer perform with the band. One woman told her that it gave her hope. That’s when the significance of her role began to sink in.
“I slowly began to realize that it was a big deal,” she said.
Lockett graduates in spring 2027. She plans to audition for casting directors and agents in February and perform for agents in New York in May.
Leading together
Until last year, the Marching Salukis had never had more than two drum majors. Now in its second season with three, the band isn’t looking back. Head drum major Charley Woodsum said adding a third person makes the job “20 times better.”
Part of that is practical. Woodsum stands in the middle of the field with fellow drum majors Harrison Braddy and Ainsley Pierce farther out, so students on the edges always have someone to follow. And if one of them is out that day, the other two step in.
Off the field, they divide the work. At rehearsal, one might help graduate assistants print and hand out music, while another relays information to the sections and the third helps Spears.
“Many hands make light work,” Braddy said.
Spears said the three communicate well, and each brings a different personality and set of experiences to the team.
Braddy, a junior music business major, said he was nervous at first about leading his peers. He grew up with band directors as role models, including an uncle who taught him in sixth grade and an aunt in seventh grade. He said that is why he auditioned. “I want to be that for somebody else.”
Woodsum, a sophomore human nutrition and dietetics major, has a reason closer to home. A Marion, Illinois, native who commutes about 30 minutes to campus, she is in her third year as a drum major, including high school. Woodsum sees the band as a way to give back to the region she grew up in. “This is how I can contribute to this area besides just living here,” she said.
Pierce, a senior music education major, has marched all four years at SIU, twice as long as her major requires. After two years as a section leader, she now works with the whole band, which she said has given her confidence as she works toward becoming a high school band director. What kept her coming back is simpler. “It’s just the community and the friendships you make,” she said.
That’s what Spears set out to build this year. With about 155 members, he said, it’s easy for students to stay in their own small groups. Thanks to the drum majors’ teamwork, the band’s student leaders and activities throughout the semester, this year’s band is coming together as a whole.
Spears said the Marching Salukis have so much history that milestones like these can get lost along the way — which is why he wanted people to know about this season. A singer on the field and three drum majors out front could become traditions for the band’s future. “These are pinnacle things of where the tide may be changing,” he said.