Music today: the school ensembles, the festival stage, the park series — and the founding dates nobody kept

present institutions as of November 2026, with the documentation problem stated as the finding

The town's music today is real, inventoried below at published strength — and almost none of it can say when it began, which is this row's finding: first, the schools. New Prairie's bands stand at program strength on the bands' own site: the Marching Cougars, "The Sound of Cougar Pride," students of grades 8–12 performing at home football games, community performances and marching competitions, and a beginning-band pipeline that recruits fifth graders each winter, sixth-grade sign-up nights each February, no prior musical background expected. The recent directorial succession is the one dated line the program publishes: Mark Belsaas (to 2012), Tiffany Galus (2012–2014), Patrick Teykl (2014–2022), Jared Jaggi (2022–present) at the high school, with Kendell Fowler at the middle school; under Teykl the Marching Cougars made school history in 2018 by qualifying for the ISSMA Semi-State in Open Class B, on the student newspaper's account. The choral side stands at the same strength: the New Prairie Choral Department's four choirs of its 2020–21 published form — two show choirs, Innovation and Sing Sensation, and two traditional choirs, Concert Choir and Sapphire — all under director Everett Forrester. Second, the festival stage: Hometown Days, founded 2005 on its own telling, programs live performances across its last-full-weekend-of-July at Memorial Park (WNDU's 2024 coverage names "live performances" among Saturday's events beside the parade and the pedal pull), and the festival organization's work includes, in the library's words, "hiring entertainment" year-round. Third, the town itself as presenter: the Town of New Carlisle's Concert in the Park Series for 2026 put live music in Memorial Park on Wednesday evenings from 5 August 2026 at 6:30 p.m., billed acts including the VanDyke Revue (5 August) and Classic Moments (26 August), run alongside the farmers market. The documentation problem, stated plainly as the row requires: of everything above, only the band-director succession after 2012 carries dates. The music is documented as a present tense and undocumented as a history, and the gap is the institutions' own keeping, named here so a later pass can settle it from the yearbooks and the festival files.

Sources:

1. New Prairie Bands (newprairiebands.weebly.com), read November 2026 — the Marching Cougars ("The Sound of Cougar Pride," grades 8–12), the prospective-students pipeline (fifth-grade presentation, February sign-up nights), directors Jared Jaggi and Kendell Fowler.
2. New Prairie United School Corporation record as carried in the corporation's published summary — band directors Belsaas (–2012), Galus (2012–2014), Teykl (2014–2022), Jaggi (2022–present); choral department under Everett Forrester; secondary strength, printed as such.
3. Cougar Chronicle (New Prairie student newspaper), 20 November 2018 — the Marching Cougars' 2018 ISSMA Semi-State Open Class B qualification, "New Prairie history," director Patrick Teykl named.
4. New Prairie Choral Department audition posting, 2020–21 — four choirs: Innovation, Sing Sensation, Concert Choir, Sapphire.
5. WNDU, "Hometown Days return to New Carlisle," 27 July 2024 — live performances among the festival's Saturday events; Hometown Days (hometowndays.net) — founded 2005, nonprofit, Memorial Park; New Carlisle Public Library posting, 25 July 2024 — the committee "hiring entertainment."
6. Town of New Carlisle, Concert in the Park Series 2026 flyer — Memorial Park, Wednesday evenings from 5 August 2026, 6:30 p.m.; the VanDyke Revue (5 August), Classic Moments (26 August).