Because they were hit with beer cans, candy and lit cigarettes during Eastern’s recent Homecoming parade in Charleston, the Newton Junior High School band decided not to return for next year’s festivities.

As a result of the behavior reported by the school’s band director, Steve Hardwick, the university is planning to meet with city officials as well as the student government and student organizations to discuss ways to curtail the behavior in next year’s parade.

Hardwick, an Eastern alumnus, decided not to return to his alma mater’s Homecoming parade because of the way his students were treated while marching on Oct. 12.

Hardwick’s band consisted of more than 103 students from the sixth, seventh and eighth grade who, while marching in the parade, were “pelted with beer cans, candy and lit cigarette butts,” he said.

“Other (band) directors tell me that I was a fool to take my band (to Eastern),” he said. “Now I see why they refuse to attend the EIU homecoming parade.”

In addition, Hardwick said many of his female students were propositioned by intoxicated individuals in front of houses located on the parade route.

“My students were afraid, and I quite honestly was afraid for them,” he said. “I was embarrassed as an alumnus to see my university putting forth such a bad image.

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“I have taken my band to other university parades and never seen anything close to what I experienced at EIU. It is no surprise to me that there were very few out-of-town bands in the parade.”

The university released a statement saying it is saddened by the actions Hardwick reported, but did not elaborate on how they plan to prevent actions such as those directed towards Newton Junior High School along with student organizations and city officials.

“Unacceptable behavior such as that which was reported to us does not reflect the positive values which the university espouses, and we take heart in that it is in marked contrast to the decent behavior of the majority of our students,” the statement said. Charleston Police Chief Ted Ghibellini said the behavior on Homecoming and Hardwick’s decision is “an unfortunate situation.”

“It’s just not a good thing all around,” he said. “I’ve never seen a crowd that feels it necessary to throw something at the people marching by; it seems unreasonable.”

Despite the officers on foot and officers in cars along the parade route, Ghibellini said it’s difficult to apprehend the people throwing objects into the parade because they don’t hear most of the complaints until after the parade is over.

He said if more marchers would approach the officers and inform them of the behavior they could try and catch the perpetrators.

“We’re not stationary,” Ghibellini said. “I would sure hope to notify one of the officers as they’re going by, I guarantee we would take action. We can’t be everywhere all the time.”

As far as next year, Ghibellini said he hopes to have the same amount of officers posted along the parade route and he hopes that more marchers and parade onlookers will inform officers of foul play so they can apprehend those individuals.