FOLEY — The walls of Foley High School shook with guitar reverberations and thumping drum sets as the first-ever student-led rock concert was held on campus April 12.

Reach and Teach, a nonprofit that collaborates with schools across Alabama to give students the opportunity to plan, promote and execute a concert, hosted the event along with students in marketing and music production courses.

The Velcro Pygmies, a local '80s rock cover band, headlined the event with a special appearance from Foley High School's student band, The Noise.

"I am very excited to have the Velcro Pygmies here and to have an in-school concert," 11th-grader Abby Bosch said. "We've been planning for this since December. I'm in the marketing class, and we got to design the tickets, posters and T-shirts and set everything up."

The students involved in planning the show were assigned different tasks, ranging from camera operators and lighting technicians to helping transport and set up the stage.

"We helped bring the stage in and set it upright, but the rest of the technical stuff like the fog machine were set up by professionals," said Makayla McGaster, an 11th-grade music production student.

In addition to running the sound board for the concert, McGaster also designed a custom guitar to be given away in a student raffle.

"My favorite part of planning for the concert was helping design the guitar," McGaster said. "At first, I did the design on paper to try and get an idea of what I wanted and then transferred that online. I looked at a lot of pictures of '80s guitars and then used white coloring to scratch and distress it."

Calisa Miller, an 11th-grade music production student, said her favorite part of planning for the event was the hands-on music production experience.

"I have always wanted to work in the music industry, and I want to learn how to be a music producer and engineer," Miller said. "I love being backstage, and I love that this is another chance to do that. It's my favorite thing."