{"id":15407,"date":"2012-07-05T15:17:43","date_gmt":"2012-07-05T19:17:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=15407"},"modified":"2012-07-05T15:17:43","modified_gmt":"2012-07-05T19:17:43","slug":"band-advances-in-americas-got-talent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=15407","title":{"rendered":"Band Advances In \u2018America\u2019s Got Talent\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In December 2010, Sea World and the Busch Garden theme parks decided to layoff a lot of personnel. Among those hit with pink slips were <strong>The Mystic Sheiks of Morocco<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Mystic Sheiks Of Morocco<\/strong> had been performing at the Tampa theme park for more than 30 years when they were told their services were no longer needed.<br \/>\nFormer members of the band stayed together and created the <strong>Distinguished Men Of Brass<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Distinguished Men Of Brass<\/strong> are competing on<em> America\u2019s Got Talent<\/em>, and after their performance in New Jersey, Monday, they were told they would be advancing in the competition that will result in a prize of $1 million.<\/p>\n<p>The band consists of <strong>Ernest Elmore,<\/strong> <strong>Darius Boone,<\/strong> <strong>Nathaniel Gordon<\/strong>, <strong>John Gilbert<\/strong>, <strong>Rico Clark<\/strong>, <strong>Donald Scott<\/strong>, Mystic Sheiks founder, <strong>Desmond Boone<\/strong>, <strong>Kayraynard Lawrence<\/strong>, <strong>Ronnie Izing<\/strong>, and <strong>Rickey Williams<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Vickie Pratt-Boone<\/strong>, the wife of <strong>Desmond<\/strong> and mother of<strong> Darius<\/strong>, said she doesn\u2019t want to sound biased, but she thinks their performance was great.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI know the sacrifices they\u2019ve made to get where they are.\u00a0 One of the members has a pregnant wife and a small child at home he needs to care for.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think the end reward is what they must stay focused on. They get their names out, and get to do what they love.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mrs. Pratt-Boone<\/strong> said she\u2019s proud of them, because they all took a bad situation, and created a great opportunity for themselves. \u201c<strong>Desmond<\/strong> left the band before they were fired, and his departure and the departure of the band were both not good circumstances.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI guess in hindsight, if they hadn\u2019t lost their jobs at Busch Gardens, they wouldn\u2019t have this opportunity. When one door closes, another one opens.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mrs. Pratt-Boone<\/strong> said she and other family members greeted the band when they returned to Tampa Wednesday, and held a big celebration, that included the group performing some of their music.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSome of the family members were able to travel to New Jersey to see them perform.\u201d<br \/>\n<strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Mrs. Pratt-Boone<\/strong> said considering there were thousands of auditions, for the band to be in the top 48 is great.<\/p>\n<p>To vote for <strong>The Distinguished Men Of Brass<\/strong>, call 1-866-602-4801. You can vote up to 30 times.<br \/>\n<em><strong> <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Reporter Leon B. Crews can be reached at (813) 248-0724, or e-mailed at lcrews@flsentinel.com.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In December 2010, Sea World and the Busch Garden theme parks decided to layoff a lot of personnel. Among those hit with pink slips were The Mystic Sheiks of Morocco. The Mystic Sheiks Of Morocco had been performing at the Tampa theme park for more than 30 years when they were told their services were [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15407\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}