Have You Heard the Thunder?

Story by Austin Clemen

The thunder is rolling at USF as the percussion group, Purple Thunder, has begun practicing.  Junior Rachel Deboer, co-leader of the group, explains what Purple Thunder is all about.

“Purple Thunder is a student-led, student-started percussion group at USF.  We do all kinds of percussion things, including experimental stuff, bucket drumming. We do a lot of mallet instruments, basically the whole gambit,” she said.

The group is comprised of students who have many different musical backgrounds, ranging from no experience at all to doing it their entire lives.

Jenn Kruger, a junior at USF, explains why she decided to join Purple Thunder, “My friends are in charge of it and I play in band, but I’ve never played percussion before, so I thought it would be fun!”

“We are hoping to perform at a lot of different events this year.  Last year we did the Spirit of Excellence Awards, so it’d be cool if we could do that again or just a regular chapel service.  But also, we thought about doing a halftime show at a basketball game, and there’s even talk about us doing our own show sometime,” Deboer tells us.

Purple Thunder’s first performance will be at Cougaret on October 9th at 8PM in Meredith Hall.