The past eight months have been a roller coaster ride for the Phil Campbell High School band program, which literally lost everything the program had physically when the E-F5 tornado tore through the town and completely demolished the band room and everything inside on April 27.

But that roller coaster ride reached new heights on Thursday when Twentieth Century Fox Television, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment and the National Association for Music Education announced that Phil Campbell High School was chosen as one of three grand prize winners to receive $50,000 for their band program through the “‘Glee’ Give a Note” campaign, which gave away $1 million to at-risk music programs across the country.

And the good news doesn’t stop there – Phil Campbell Elementary School, which was also entered in the contest, won an additional $25,000 for their music program for being one of 10 schools to come in first place in the contest.

The two schools have been competing in the contest since September when band director Bobby Patrick asked Chris Burns, who serves as pastor of

Phil Campbell Church of God, to put together a video that would demonstrate why the Phil Campbell Band deserved to receive this much-needed funding.

Patrick said through generous donations from individuals and businesses in the community, both monetary donations and donations of instruments, the PCHS band program was able to get back on its feet for this year’s marching season – but concert season was going to be a completely different story.

He said they had raised a lot of money to replace the missing instruments, sheet music and other items they needed but rebuilding a band program from scratch takes more money than most people realize.

Patrick said fundraising to help replenish the band program’s coffers isn’t an option since so many in the town lost their homes and everything else they had to the tornado.

“You can’t really go out and ask someone to buy something who has lost everything,” he said. “Everyone wants to help, but the town just isn’t in that kind of a position to help us financially.”

With other avenues for raising money cut off, the “‘Glee’ Give a Note” campaign seemed like an answer to their prayers.

A portion of the contest judging was based on a legitimate need, an emotional impact and a relevance to music education, all elements Patrick thought Phil Campbell had covered.

The other element taken into consideration by judges was the number of votes each school’s vide received during the course of the contest. The videos were posted on the “‘Glee’ Give a Note” website and were open to voters across the country.

Since PCHS and PCES are such small schools compared to some of their competition, Patrick said it was really a true testament to the amount of support they received from the local community who voted every day and passed along the word so others outside the area could vote every day as well.