Aiyanna Davis: Making the unorganized organized with LUMP

When it comes to a Historically Black College and University, there are many sights and sounds to experience around the campus. Sometimes these are the sounds of students crowding the cafe on fried chicken Wednesday, or the sounds of the Greeks strolling and doing their chants. However, nothing quite compares to the sound of an HBCU marching band. Langston University is home to the Langston University “marching pride band,” which has been a 200+ member organization over the last several years.

Once 6 p.m. passes, you are likely to hear the sounds of the rhythmic percussion section or the powerful sounds of horns all across the campus. The marching pride is under the direction of head band director Mark Gordon, who has been in charge since 2018, along with his team of directors and other staff members. One member of this team actually does dual duty as a student and serves as the administrative assistant for the band program.

Aiyanna Davis, also known as “Yanni,” is currently a graduating senior chemistry and psychology major and cancer research student from Kansas City, Missouri.

Yanni’s musical journey started at Faith Academy, a private school located in a church in Kansas City, where she was introduced to multiple instruments. She started on the violin and then was interested in playing the trumpet; however, she was pushed into the direction of woodwind instruments, where she discovered the flute, an instrument she has now played since the second grade.

She picked up a piccolo when she got to Langston, as piccolos are more commonly used in HBCU marching bands as opposed to flutes. This is due to the higher-pitched sound they can produce to cut through the rest of the band to stand out. It was the love of performing, traveling, networking and serving the community that made Yanni continue to stay on her musical journey for as long as she has.

She was introduced to Langston after looking into Xavier University and realizing that it was not quite the fit for her. Yanni was then reached out to by her uncle, who is a Langston University alumnus, and he reached out to Dr. Gordon personally, who then reached out to Yanni via email. Dr. Gordon called
Yanni for an opportunity to play and receive a scholarship at Langston for the fall of 2021.

When it came down to making the move to Langston, Yanni felt scared, had second thoughts, and even felt as if she might not have been ready to move away from her “comfortable place” back at home. During move-in, she faced many challenges. Between having to wait 8 hours to be told her dorm wasn’t ready and wouldn’t be for weeks, and then having to stay in a hotel for those weeks, even while having band camp, she became worried. Due to her having previously marched corps style, a more commonly used style at PWIs as opposed to the show style marching that is used at HBCUs, “it was kind of a challenge for me and my body physically and mentally because I had to learn something new,” she said.

As for her first performance, the marching pride was invited to Houston, Texas, for the National Battle of the Bands, and although Yanni had performed in an arena before while doing choir, she felt as if “it was different because you’re in a marching uniform playing for 40 thousand.. 60 thousand people.”

For those who haven’t experienced walking into NRG Stadium as a performer, it really is a unique experience. When you see all the other bands in the parking lot, you can’t help but wonder, what is everyone else going to do? Once you walk in and feel the cool stadium air and hear a mixture of bands warming up inside and fans cheering, at that moment, you know things are real.

Yanni described this performance as a “once-in-a-lifetime” kind of performance and noted that she mainly just remembers the “excitement of being there and seeing the other bands”.

Once she got her time management together, Yanni did start to have a more routine schedule. Her schedule for her freshman year consisted of getting up at 9 am to get ready for class, after going to class, she would go to sectionals for about 30 minutes, and then continue with class. Once 6 pm hit, she would be at band practice until whenever they were released, usually around 11 pm to 12 am. Unlike most students, she would sometimes stay on the field after for a quick workout by running 2-3 miles, or she would go to the gym and work out for about an hour and a half. Yanni recalled that the workouts with her friend group were one of the best parts of her freshman year.

However, all the things that happened with housing and band, and school are what pushed her to want to become the administrative assistant she is today. She wanted to help eliminate some of those problems and help make sure other students didn’t struggle as much as she did, as well as help them “be successful through their college experience”.

Her process to becoming the administrative assistant started her freshman year when she told the band directors that she wanted to take on the role. She decided to help out the current administrative assistant at the time, Maiya Thomas, and was helping with recruiting, scholarships, band camp emails, and more. She didn’t start there, though; her first couple of responsibilities were things like checking the attendance, checking uniforms, and making phone calls to students.

When it came to balancing this with her already busy schedule, Yanni says she had to keep work and academics separate, which included “keeping two separate planners” and taking hours to focus on one thing at a time. Yanni didn’t see herself taking on the role when first touching down at Langston and really just saw herself being a regular band member. However, after seeing Maiya struggling, she decided her efforts would be better served by helping her out.

For Yanni, one of the hardest parts of being the administrative assistant was trying to figure out how to run things once Maiya left.  Even while being around a band of 200+ people, a lot of things were left for her to complete. These jobs ranged from attendance to phone calls to printing out music for all the musicians, all on her own. She felt like finding some help was surprisingly the biggest struggle.

As the Fall 2025 semester started, Yanni was working effortlessly against the housing crisis by helping make sure students had places to go, and this included calling section leaders to ask if some of the incoming freshmen could stay with them until their housing situation was figured out.

Currently, Yanni does have the help she needs as she now has assistants herself. She also has an office, which is located at the top of the stairs of the band hall. It is the first room on the right, and you’ll notice the calendar on the left wall, a whiteboard on the right wall, and a window which looks directly into the head band director’s office on the back wall.

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Yanni sits at a table in the middle of the room. Some days it’s neat and organized, other days a bit cluttered. This year’s freshman band camp for her was all about turning chaos into order: making sure students had band on their schedule, ensuring everyone’s paperwork was complete, and training her assistants to keep the organization running smoothly.

When it comes to paperwork, this includes anti-hazing forms, traveling forms, medical forms, and any other paperwork that needs to go to student life. Yanni was the one getting those things done.

She made sure to stay active as well by getting from behind the desk to work out with the band whenever they worked out, or she and her assistants would go for runs while the band worked on marching fundamentals. You may have also caught her marching alongside some of the freshmen during band camp, as well as another way to stay active and involved.

The marching pride is traveling a lot this school year, and Yanni has already played a major role in getting a lot of stuff done. She was making calls to hotels in Houston and Mississippi to make sure the number of rooms was correct. She also had to place all 250+ students on buses and in hotel rooms, which were typically 4 students to a room. She did this while also having to communicate with students and make sure everyone was comfortable in these traveling conditions, which, as you can imagine, can be difficult with so many people.

On a daily basis, Yanni will have people come in and out of her office, whether it is band-based or just her friends coming to say hi and hang around for a while. During marching season, the band hall stays humming with different sounds. Whether it’s classes, students practicing marching band music individually or as a section, or directors arranging music, you can hear it all from Yanni’s office.

Inventory was also something that she was in charge of, so when it comes down to the shorts, shirts, warmups, and other apparel you see the band wear or perform in, she was responsible for making sure that was all organized and each student received what they needed. She spends a lot of time on Microsoft Excel and says she spends, on average, about an hour or more on just organizing everything.

If you were to ask Yanni about her daily routine now, she would tell you she isn’t like your average college student or even your average band student; her routine now is a little different from the one she had her freshman year.

Her day starts at about 8 am to get ready for classes, during this time she does her skincare, she prays and reads her bible, and sends morning texts to her family. She heads to class at 10 am, and after that, she either goes home to set her agenda for the day/week or does her cancer research for about 2 and a half hours. Once the research is done, she takes an hour and a half to have lunch and get some “me time” as she is very big on having some time to herself. When 1-2 pm hits, she goes into the band hall for work and starts to work on anything she was assigned to do for that day up until the time for band practice starts.

When practice starts, you’ll either catch her doing attendance, marching with the band, or making sure things are being set for the next day. She is usually the last person to leave, as she waits for all of the students and directors to leave before she does. Once practice is over, she typically goes to the gym for an hour and a half, does her skincare, prays, and then lies down to get ready to do it all again the next day.