Bagpiper Leads Parade of Students Through Margate School on Scotland Day [VIDEO]

The assignment from my daughter's second-grade teacher was for parents to do a presentation about a foreign country.  We were responsible for Scotland Day.

Well, having studied in Scotland one summer during college, what I remembered most vividly about Scotland was bagpipe music.  They literally broke out the bagpipe to welcome...lunch.

Deciding that we needed a bagpipe for the big Scotland Day presentation, but not knowing any bagpipers, I asked one morning on Lite Rock if anyone could suggest a good bagpipe player.  I wasn't very optimistic, though.  It didn't seem like the kind of request that would bring much response.

Was I ever wrong!

People called and e-mailed for days with names of bagpipe players they knew or friends knew or friends of friends knew.

Eventually, these suggestions lead to me calling Jeff McNeil, a retire Egg Harbor Township teacher, and, more importantly, a hell of a bagpipe player!

Jeff agreed to be my bagpipe player and also offered to teach the class some of the fundamentals of bagpiping and how it came to be such a part of Scottish life.

One of the points on history Jeff raised was that bagpipers once lead Scottish troops in to battle. The sound of the pipes seemed to somehow unnerve the enemy.  At least that's what Jeff said. I can believe it, too. If a bagpiper snuck up behind me in the olden days in Scotland and started playing just before a battle, I would probably have made a mess of my kilt.

Well, one thing lead to another, and we decided to have Jeff the bagpiper lead the students from my daughters' class around the school as the culmination of Scotland Day.

Here is video of that march through the hallways of the Ross School, with my thanks to the school faculty and administration for being so cool about it!