A place that once held choruses of hallelujahs now holds the rowdy sounds of the Hawkeye Marching Band.

The 250-member ensemble started conducting music rehearsals in the former St. Thomas More Catholic Church Wednesday night.

“We’re just trying to do the best we can in this situation,” Marching Band Director Kevin Kastens said.

The band members haven’t been able to find a permanent home for rehearsals since the flood of 2008.

The Marching Band held its rehearsals in Voxman Music Building until it flooded. Last year, practices were at West High. In August, the band started in the Recreation Building, but it has since moved to the church facility, purchased by the UI in 2008.

The St. Thomas More building will be the Marching Band’s permanent home for the last five music rehearsals of the season, Kastens said.

As students settled into the new practice facility for their Wednesday night rehearsal, they shifted around pews, tuned up their instruments and adjusted to yet another new practice place.

Kastens said he is grateful the athletics department and School of Music have been working closely with the band to ensure it has somewhere to prepare music.

But more than anything, some students are ready for the band to have a place close to campus they can practice in.

“It feels like we don’t really have a solid place to call our own,” said UI junior Sharaine Conner.

The piccolo player said she liked the Recreation Building because it was on campus and close to a Cambus route.

“[With an off-campus facility] you have to budget more time for travel, maybe leave early for class or maybe skip meals,” she said.

Though the Recreation Building was considered a good location, the building couldn’t stand up acoustically to the noise level of 250 marching Hawkeyes.

“After the first practice, we had to set up speakers just so the band could hear me,” Kastens said.

He noted all students are issued earplugs, regardless of the practice facility, because rehearsals can get very noisy.

One UI freshman, Dustin Davis, said there have been issues with some of the temporary locations.

“The biggest problem with the Rec Building was that it wasn’t air-conditioned and could get pretty hot,” he said.

Despite the many changes and moves, students aren’t ready to give up on the band yet.

Thaddaeus Reeves, a UI sophomore, said he loves the community the band offers.

“It was the first group I got to know when I came to campus last year,” the trumpet player said.

Each section divides up so underclassmen can get rides from people with cars if the practice is off-campus, Davis said.

Though Kastens said the band hasn’t secured a permanent location to practice next year, the St. Thomas More facility worked nicely.

And several months into his freshman year, Davis said he’s seen the impact the band has on both teams and fans in the short time he’s been at the UI.

“Band’s never going to stop because of a building,” he said.