INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Excitement ran high Saturday morning as over 200 Brownsburg High School students and faculty boarded five separate flights to California, ready to march in one of the most iconic parades in the world. RELATED: Brownsburg High School marching band to march in 137th Ros e Bowl Parade The Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena steps off on Jan. 1, followed by the equally iconic 137th Rose Bowl. There, we will see IU front and center playing against Alabama. News 8 met with the marching band at 3 a.m. Saturday at the Indianapolis airport to hear their thoughts on the work ahead of them. Student Layton Patterson says he is looking forward to remembering this moment in the future. “It means the world to me. My mom is actually from Orange County, so to go and do something in her old stomping grounds is a big deal for me and I know it’s a big deal for a lot of other people.” Fellow student Ella McCloud agrees. “I think it’s such an awesome experience that people don’t get on the average day. I think us being able to say, ‘Oh, we’re from Brownsburg’, and putting our name out there is awesome.” Brownsburg High School applied in 2024 to march in the parade this year – and that involved a very competitive process. They have also spent the last year preparing their set, dedicating hours and hours to practice during their summer, fall, and winter breaks. This year’s set includes many songs from the Broadway musical “Wicked.” Director of Bands Chris Kaflik says before the parade, the band will play at various locations around California, making for a very busy week leading up to the big finale. “We’re going to go to the Los Angeles farmers market, then they go rehearsal almost immediately after that,” he said. “And then we practice our fall show and all of our parade sequences that we’re doing out in Pasadena. Then, we’re going to our hotel to rest because we’re out here pretty early today. “(Sunday), we go to Disneyland. We’ll do a parade out in Disneyland, and we’ll have some days at Universal and Huntington Beach. We have to go to an event called Bandfest where we perform our entire competitive show from the 2025 season, and then we’ll do the Rose Parade.” This is the first time Brownsburg will play in the Rose Parade, but the school has been on large stages before. In 2021, the school marched in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.“I take a lot of pride in that fact that we’ll represent Indiana, along with IU this year,” Kaflik said. “We know that the viewers are going to be coming in by the numbers this year, because obviously there’s a special game going on this year with Indiana, so we hope that we do Indiana proud with our performance for the Rose Bowl parade.” Brownsburg will join the IU Marching Hundred in representing the Hoosier State during the Rose Bowl parade. The Rose Bowl Parade starts at 8 a.m. PST. You can catch the full parade WISH-TV on New Year’s Day, starting at from 11 a.m. ET! ...read more read less