BATON ROUGE — A new counselor starts her first full school year serving members of the LSU Tiger Marching Band and students within the College of Music and Dramatic Arts.

Sharae Vicknair, the embedded clinician, says the counseling position provides accessible mental health and wellness services. Vicknair initially began serving some band members partway into the 2025-2026 school year.

"This is my first August," Vicknair said. "My goal, truly, is to help students take care of their mental health outside of this room."

Vicknair's position is funded through a combination of dollars from the Matthew Bahlinger Memorial Fund, the LSU Health Center and the College of Music and Dramatic Arts. Vicknair said Tiger Band members deal with stressors other college students may not face.

"[The students] manage a full-time course load, but they also have auditions, practices; they have to wear those outfits in the 99-degree heat, right? They have to perform; they're held to a standard of perfection. It's the Golden Band from Tigerland," Vicknair said. "It can get pretty strenuous and difficult for a college student to manage."

Gerald and Alice Bahlinger, Matthew's parents, said the memorial fund was created as a way to remember their son who took his own life in 2022. His parents said Matthew struggled with depression before and after he was a student at LSU.

"When he did get here, he had trouble finding a counselor, a clinician. They just didn't have enough," Alice Bahlinger said. "It won't help Matthew, but it will help all these other kids. We know, from other personal anecdotes, the clinicians have saved lives."

The plan to provide counseling and mental health services was five years in the making, the Bahlinger family said.

"We've gone from nothing, to one part-time, to two part-time, to now a fully embedded clinician that sits in the School of Music. It's unbelievable."

Vicknair will be formally introduced to Tiger Band members at Matt's Dinner, an annual event where volunteers serve hundreds of students and staff members. That event is planned for Friday, Aug. 21.

The family says the Matthew Bahlinger Memorial Fund is still accepting contributions to further its work of providing behavioral health resources to LSU students. That information can be found on the LSU Foundation website.