Six West Virginia University students spent their spring break practicing and playing their instruments for students and faculty from across the globe.

The students are members of WVU student organization Campus Crusade for Christ’s band. After sending in some samples of their music, the band was chosen to play at the Big Break conference in Panama City, Fla.

“It is a big deal that they were able to go,” said Joshua Young, organization president. “Usually they have a recording-level band that plays. It was pretty exciting for them, and for us.”

In total 65 students and five faculty members from WVU attended the conference. Everyone participated in morning and afternoon worship sessions, and helped with outreach on the beach. The band played at the end of each session.

Young estimated there were about 1,000 students in attendance.

“We had never done anything this big before,” said sophomore Charlie Heyl, leader of the band. “We spent a lot of time in the ballroom practicing the songs we had to play at the next session. It was definitely a test of how much energy we had.”

The band played an average of six songs a day for each of the five days of the conference.

“It was amazing; it was so much bigger and better than I thought it would be and going through that with the band family as a unit was really cool,” Heyl said. “You can’t really describe it in words.”

Band members are: Heyl, bassist; junior Erica Leslie, vocalist; sophomore Alexander Chaney, lead vocalist; freshman Andrew Liounis, drummer; junior Andrew Waybright, lead guitar; and freshman Zach Sallade, guitar.

For more information on WVU’s Campus Crusade for Christ, visit their Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2200480541 .

-WVU-

cd/03/30/11

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