Band on the Run

Courtesy Carolyn Havens Niemann ’89

Published Jan. 21, 2016

When the Princeton University Band flew home from the football team’s opening game in San Diego Sept. 20, the men and women in plaid found a friendly face in the cockpit: United Airlines pilot Michael Niemann ’90, a former band member. He’s pictured above next to drum major Mary Gilstad ’15. The flight assignment was a happy coincidence for Niemann, who met his wife, Carolyn Havens Niemann ’89, when the two were in the band’s trash-percussion section in 1986.

Published in the Oct. 22, 2014, Issue

1 Response

Rocky Semmes ’79

8 Years Ago

What Are the Odds?

Late to the races with this inquiry, but wondering if anyone in the math department can calculate the odds involved in the Princeton University Band flying home on a random commercial flight that just happened to be piloted by not only an alumnus, but coincidentally a band alumnus at that (On the Campus, Oct. 22). Talk about “ending on a high note”; that just might be the very definition of that expression.