BOUNTIFUL — Saint Olaf Parish in Bountiful celebrated Mardi Gras in carnival style Feb. 21, and featured the band Just Three Words. The Mardi Gras celebration included a potluck and a community of fun, face painting, mask making for kids of all ages, hair up-dos, game booths, karaoke, and live music by Just Three Words, a newly formed band of 13-year-olds. Saint Olaf Mardi Gras co-chairwomen Liz Nafus and Krista Smith said Mardi Gras is a festive time before the fasting that takes place during Lent that begins Feb. 25. "A lot of Mardi Gras parties are for adults 21 and older, so when I heard this band wanted a venue to play for, I said this would be a perfect match," said Nafus. "The mothers of some of the band members were having a hard time finding venues for the band. Our Mardi Gras is for families. Three of the members of Just Three Words are members of Saint Olaf Parish, have attended Saint Olaf School, and attend Saint Olaf Sunday School. So the whole arrangement worked out well." The band was featured on KUTV2 Morning News with Casey Scott Feb. 18, with the first tease at 5:55 a.m. and the last at 7:45 a.m. They were also featured on KJZZ14 at 9 a.m. The band and co-chairwomen were featured eight times. "For 13-year-olds, they are amazing," said Scott. "We won’t put anyone on our air that we don’t think are great. So that speaks volumes." Rebecca Odoardi said the band was started when her son, Thomas had to do a service project at Milcreek Junior High for his English class. He said he wanted to start a band to raise money for the TAO project for orphans in Afghanistan. I said no. They did it anyway and raised $280, which was double the amount anyone else raised. "They started a year ago on Feb. 3, and had very little musical training," said Odorardi. "We met on Saint Olaf’s basketball team when we were 11 years old," said Thomas Odoardi. "We were hanging out at Gateway one day and said let’s start a band because Matt Duncan could play guitar and I could sing. There was a newspaper in the back of the car, so we were looking through it trying to find a name and found one that was already taken. So we kept thinking." "We wanted to start the band for a while, and then I had to do a fund raiser, so we decided to get it together," said Odoardi. "We practiced a couple of times and played "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple. We weren’t that good. Then we added Max Perez and Brant Dolling and performed for a talent show, and we were a lot better. Perez had never played drums, but he was a natural. "We needed an amplifier for my mother’s retirement party, and met Rick Meadows, from David Music Academy, who became our producer," said Odoardi. "Meadows introduced us to Elliott Wood and that made us that much better."
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