Photograph by Jeff Etheridge
Tunnel Vision

As their predecessors have done for decades, members of this year’s Auburn University Marching Band help Tigers fans herald the arrival of football players onto the field at Jordan-Hare Stadium and entertain fans at halftime. Auburn administrators are planning a new $15 million band hall and practice field off Samford Avenue. Cover story on Page 34.

Channeling Steve Irwin and P.T. Barnum, Wes Moore ’00 runs his own reptilian conservation station and tourist attraction.

Gator Bait

Written by Michael Hansberry
Photography by Jeff Etheridge
Art Direction by Stacy Wood

Armed with a wooden stick, a frozen chicken and possibly the grace of a higher power, Wesley Moore ’00 confronts a hungry savage. If this were a boxing ring, the prematurely graying 33-year-old clearly would be outclassed: His opponent outweighs him by at least 600 pounds and has much bigger teeth.

It’s feeding time at Alligator Alley.

Donning a tan farmer’s hat to protect his face from the hot summer sun, Moore engages in a test of wills with one of the 150 alligators living on his property. With every step he takes backward, the gator in front of him crawls forward two. Moore keeps his eyes trained on the reptile; the reptile stares down the man and his poultry. One of them will be lunch.
Finally, swiftly, Moore steps toward the leathery creature. The alligator lunges upward, snapping its massive jaws shut on the chicken, twisting and turning, chomping, swallowing.

The rapt audience breaks into applause, and Moore takes a well-practiced bow.

A trumpet player steps high, counts to the beat and tries not to trip as the Auburn University Marching Band forges onto the field at Jordan-Hare, providing the loud-and-proud soundtrack for another football season.

Marching Orders

Written by Rabecca Lakin
Photography by Philip Smith and Jeff Etheridge
Art Direction by Shannon Bryant-Hankes

Standing, waiting, just beneath the stands of Jordan-Hare Stadium, I feel a single bead of perspiration creep down my skull. It’s itchy and uncomfortable and, well, a little gross, but I don’t swipe it because my attention is primarily drawn to two things: a kid about my age from Prattville, dressed entirely in white and clutching a worn black whistle between his teeth, and a regal golden eagle just completing its familiar, artful flight marking the beginning of another Auburn football game.
A crowd of 87,000 spectators bellows a thundering “War Eagle” battle cry. That Nova—he makes it look so easy.It’s almost my turn to perform, and all I can think is: Do not fall down.
“BAND. TEN-hut.”

“One!”

The kid in white—a drum major—presses his lips onto the whistle:
Tweet-tweet. Tweeeeeeeeeeeeet!

It’s time to march.