On Monday at 9 a.m., supporters of Tiger Band director Roy King, who was recently placed on administrative leave, plan to march from the Lod Cook Alumni Center to LSU President F. King Alexander’s office to deliver a change.org petition titled “Support Roy King #istandwithroy #bandwithroy,” which has more than 1,300 signatures.
Former Tiger Band drum major Mary Bahlinger, who graduated in May 2015, has organized the event in hopes that it will help King keep his job because his supporters feel that he and the band have been “wronged.”
Though Bahlinger acknowledged she does not have all of the specifics surrounding the administrative action, she said King has been open about the fact that the LSU School of Music has been after the money the band receives from LSU Athletics for “a long time.”
“Everybody’s going to have a different take on Roy King, but my personal experience is that he will do whatever it takes to support all and any of his students in whatever they need to help them do their job,” Bahlinger said. “He would never do anything wrong because he always knows, he always has that thing in the back of his mind, knowing that if anything did happen the students would be the ones affected the most by it.”
At 10 a.m., the group will meet a second time on the steps of the state Capitol to deliver the same petition to Gov. John Bel Edwards.
So far, the “Roy King Rally” Facebook event shows 99 people are interested and 35 plan on attending. But with the “TIGER BAND FANS FOR ROY” Facebook group having garnered almost 2,500 members, Bahlinger said it is difficult to gauge how many alumni, students, band members and fans may actually show up.
When Bahlinger joined that Facebook group around 5 p.m. on Wednesday, shortly after the news was announced, she said it had around 100 members. By 9 p.m., she said there were more than 1,500 people in it.
On Thursday, several group members posted email address for higher-ups both at the University and in the state government. Bahlinger said so many people sent emails encouraging those officials to protect King’s job that they “crashed the servers.”
She described the overall support for King from the University and alumni community as “incredible.”
“Anyone who meets Roy King knows that he loves the band. That’s what he does. That’s not just his job, that’s who he his. That type of energy and that type of love just feeds to other people,” Bahlinger said. “I think everybody — not just alumni but other people, businesses, other Tigerband alumni — when they do meet him, they know it without ever having to say it.”