Marching band alumni, students make Homecoming a family affair

As the CMU marching band marched down Main Street toward downtown Mount Pleasant during last year’s Homecoming Parade, the saxophone section turned around and walked backwards.

Caleb Larsen, a freshman in the saxophone section, was marching next to his dad Mike, a CMU alumnus from 1999 who is now the band director for Haslett High School. Both turned around and were face-to-face with Maddy, sister and daughter of the sax players.

“They turned around, and I got to wave hi to Caleb and dad,” Maddy said. She was at the front of her section, playing a kind of French horn designed for marching band called an f-alto at CMU.

“And we got to say hi back,” Mike said.

It added a layer of importance to an already great day.

“It’s special to actually get to have your dad do it with you,” Maddy Larsen said. The three even had their own cheering section. Meaghan Larsen, Maddy and Caleb’s mother and Mike’s wife and another CMU alum, watched from the sidewalk of her family’s hometown of Mount Pleasant.

They plan to make this year’s Homecoming just as special.

“It’s a good reason to come back to Central,” Mike said.

This year’s Homecoming Parade, one of Homecoming’s centerpiece events, will start at 11 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 3 and wrap up in downtown Mount Pleasant at approximately noon.

The day is also Maddy’s last Homecoming with the marching band. Next fall, the music education major expects to student teach, making this her last season with the marching band.

Two years isn’t enough to establish a family tradition, but they already have that. All three have close ties to one of CMU’s oldest, most storied buildings.

Maddy and Caleb are both Leadership Institute scholars. Before they selected CMU for college, they came to campus to participate in a scholarship competition in the building that is home to the Leadership Institute: Powers Hall.

Powers Hall was home to the school of music before the music building opened in 2000. When Mike brought Maddy and then Caleb to campus for the competition, he gave them tours of the building, including the second-floor ballroom.

That experience helped Maddy pick CMU as her school. It wasn’t Powers Hall so much as the open and welcoming faculty of the Leadership Institute and School of Music she said.

“It already felt like a place I could feel at home,” she said. The scholarship and leadership program also helped her off with a good start toward her degree.

Caleb came to CMU to study biology. A different building, the Biosciences building, prompted him to pick CMU where he’s studying microplastics in an urban ecology under Amanda Suchy.

“I could see myself engaging in that space,” he said.

Caleb also decided to continue his music experience in the marching band, which draws members from across all majors. In fact, Caleb started building his undergraduate friend network in marching band when he met several other biology majors.

Maddy and Caleb were free to choose their own school, of course, Mike said. He didn’t push them toward CMU but was pleased when they picked it.

Ultimately, it led to one more opportunity for the three to share a marching band experience together. This time, they were joined by their sister Kerstin, a few years younger than Caleb and a member of Haslett’s high school marching band.

Mike returned to CMU for Band Day in 2025 and, as Haslett’s band director, directed the fight song with all three of his children on the field.

“It’s probably the only time all three will be under my baton on the field,” he said.