DALTON, Ga. — A video posted to Facebook on Tuesday of current band members at Southeast Whitfield High School throwing historical band trophies in the trash quickly drew an outcry from former band members.

The reaction left school officials scrambling to keep the hardware from being hauled off to the dump.

“I remember every day we would go down to the end of the football field on that hot pavement and we would work our butts off to earn those trophies,” said Megan Dycus, a 2009 band alumnus. “It is just like someone had no respect for what we went through. It is a really low blow and makes me feel like what we did didn’t matter and what I did didn’t matter.”

Video shows Southeast Whitfield High School historical band trophies being thrown away

The video was posted to Facebook by Diana Carrillo, a 2018 graduate of the school, who said she is still friends and communicates with current band members. Some of those students sent Carrillo videos of the trophies being carted down the hallways at the school, then cutting to students throwing the trophies into the metal dumpsters outside of the school.

“History of the raider band, rip (rest in peace),” one of the videos was captioned.

“Some of our family members and friends have been in that band program for years and years and years,” Carrillo said. “The memories of their family and their accomplishments would not be there. It is taking our entire band history away and there are not going to be any memories of the bands that came before.”

Four hours after the video was posted to Facebook, the post had more than 5,000 views and 120 comments, many of them from alumni who expressed outrage that the trophies — which they said symbolized all of their hard work and sacrifices — were simply thrown away.

“I am absolutely outraged and this is a huge disrespect to the band,” said 2016 band member Kaitlyn Love, who is married to 2014 band member Bryan Love. “This represents the foundation of the band and everything that program is today. The band has been so good for so many years. It is outraging and infuriating.”

Others agreed, and many online and in interviews blamed band director Mike Brodowski, who took over for longtime band director Warren Mahan last school year.

“Old or not, it is still our history,” said Jada Sanchez, class of 2015. “When I was in high school, you didn’t go to the games for football. You went for the band. That is part of our history. It is insane. It wasn’t (Brodowski’s) place to throw them away. You don’t mess with history. You aren’t making any friends with the alumni by doing this.”

A message to Brodowski from a reporter resulted in a phone call from Southeast Principal Denise Pendley.

Pendley said she had no idea of the reaction the trashing of the trophies would generate. Pendley, who is a 1988 graduate of Southeast, said it was more a question of too many trophies and too little space in the band room. Pendley said she and Brodowski had gone through the trophies and chose older, less significant trophies to throw away.

“If anyone needs to apologize, it would need to be me,” Pendley said. “I knew what he was doing beforehand. We kind of culled through them and kept the more recent trophies and the more significant trophies. I didn’t realize how upset this would make people, but once we figured out the community was upset, we tried to make it right.”

Pendley, Brodowski, Superintendent Judy Gilreath and other staff members were taking trophies out of the trash bins as the sun was setting Tuesday evening. Gilreath said she had been told of the trashing of the trophies after students and alumni contacted a school board member.

“I am invested in this school, so I would never do anything that would maliciously try to hurt our alumni base,” Pendley said. “We want to highlight our accomplishments, but this was mainly a decision based on space.”

Gilreath said the space is needed, but the decision to throw away the trophies was misguided.

“This is part of our history,” she said. “People just don’t realize the heritage and the history of this band program. It was a mistake. He just didn’t realize the importance of this. We will have to make a place to store them.”

Christian Nicholson, who graduated in 2013 and now lives in Gainesville, said the accomplishments of the past should be remembered and not tossed away.

“It is just disrespect of past generations and all the work we had done,” Nicholson said. “That it was even considered to do that is unbelievable. If someone had called, we would have taken them before they went in the trash. I don’t think that Brodowski should get fired, but there should be something of an apology to the previous band directors and it should be known. It needs to be known that he stepped up, and the principal needs to apologize, too. If it had been taken off to the trash, it would have been much worse.”