Odessa students send Birds off with ‘Fly, Eagles Fly’ performance

What do Odessa’s choir, orchestra and band students have in common, besides a love of music? 

The Philadelphia Eagles.

And to express their support, Appoquinimink’s Old State Elementary and Odessa middle and high school ensembles performed the team’s fight song “Fly, Eagles Fly”  Tuesday. 

The students wanted to give the NFC Champion Philadelphia Eagles a proper send off to Super Bowl LVII in Arizona. In five days, they play the AFC Champion Kansas City Chiefs. 

“This day is about unity in our schools and it’s awesome for us to come together for the Birds in their most important week,” said Brian Endlein, Odessa High School’s band director. “This is a fun way to kind of send them our well wishes.”

“Having multiple groups from different schools come together is not something we usually get to do,” said Odessa High junior Angel Wilson. “So this united day allows us to not just listen to each other, but see where everyone is in their playing abilities, which evokes excitement.”

He joked that although the school’s mascot is the duck, birds of a feather flock together.

“When we found out we were all playing together, we all thought it was the coolest thing,” he said. “You don’t get to see 250 students come together often to not only display their musical gifts, but to celebrate the success of our football team.”

Voni Perrine, principal of Odessa High, conducted the musicians eloquently, with a sharp, uniform silence abruptly following the student chanting “E-A-G-L-E-S EAGLES!”

“Our school values include being united, creative, determined and kind scholars, and we were able to put that on display in a joyous event,” she said. “We have staff who are huge Eagles fans who helped put this together, and the students are excited too, so the performance was a great way to highlight our unity.”

The Eagles will be donning their midnight green jerseys, the same ones they wore when they won the first Super Bowl in franchise history, defeating Tom Brady and the New England Patriots 41-33 five years ago. 

Odessa High special education math teacher Kyle Curry, who’s built like Eagles center Jason  Kelce and has a similar burly beard, mimicked his doppelganger by rocking a mummer costume during the performance. 

Kyle Curry doing his best Jason Kelce impression. (Jarek Rutz/Delaware LIVE News)

He was copying Jason Kelce’s now famous mummer costume worn during the 2018 victory parade.

“I bought it off Amazon,” Curry said, “C’mon, I just had to!”

Jarek Rutz

Raised in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, Jarek earned a B.A. in journalism and a B.A. in political science from Temple University in 2021. After running CNN’s Michael Smerconish’s YouTube channel, Jarek became a reporter for the Bucks County Herald before joining Delaware LIVE News.

Jarek can be reached by email at [email protected] or by phone at (215) 450-9982. Follow him on Twitter @jarekrutz