On Aug. 5, the Rolla High School Band had a unique experience. Jim Neumeir, a businessman and former band student from Saint Louis, Missouri, decided to give back to his community by donating the box truck for the Rolla Band. He presented it during the final day of 2022 band camp via police escort.
Michael Goldschmidt, one of the Rolla High School Band Directors, mentioned that the band was in desperate need of replacing the 20-year-old haulers of their equipment. As luck would have it, Neumeir’s company was in possession of an extra box truck that he wanted to gift to a local band.
“Jim, he’s a lifelong band kid. He went and marched in Drum Corps International, which is called DCI, and that’s like a grownup version of marching band around the country,” stated Goldschmidt. “Jim owns a fuels and lubricants company and he had an extra truck that he wanted to give to a marching band.”
Neuimeir spent 5 months refurbishing and restoring the truck before its grand reveal.
“Basically, he had this truck. It’s a 26 foot international box truck and it’s rated for 25,999 pounds, which will haul most anything that we need to get on there. And he wanted to completely rake over the truck, fix everything on it…put new tires on it… the whole works. He wanted to wrap the truck and put [in] all the details so that way it’s a showstopper.”
The main purpose of the truck is to transport the heavier instruments, such as the drumline, saxophones, sousaphones, baritones and trombones.
“They worked on and redid the truck, put the wrap on it and got it all ready for delivery. It’s got basically a train horn, a semi horn on it, that’s super loud because he wanted it to be heard wherever it went,” explained Goldschmidt. “He also put LED lighting around the bottom and all the lights on the truck are LED. It’s got a 3500 pound lift gate on it to lift out all of our heavy equipment that we buy.”
A spur-of-the-moment picture of junior “band kid,” Darien Yu, was taken in 2021, and later, Neumeir chose it as the eye-catching truck design. He wanted it to be a complete surprise to the directors as well as the kids. For Yu, the truck was a life changing sight.
“When I first saw it pull into the high school parking lot, the thoughts rushing into my head were like, ‘Man, I want to leave a mark on this band when I leave.’ And then, I was really emotional when I saw it. Knowing that I’ll be on that truck for like 30 years to come. That just hit deep,” described Yu.