Bands gear up for marching season
The high school band, under the direction of Kevin Hume, Matt McCool and Sara Beth Eubanks, is gearing up for a new marching season.
The students worked in summer practices from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. July 24 through Aug. 7, learning to march and to play the music to the halftime/competition show titled “Music After Dark.” The show has three main tunes with the theme of “night” being in each tune, including: “Tonight” from West Side Story, “Music of the Night” from Phantom of the Opera, and “Some Nights” by the pop group Fun.
The band has three drum majors this year — head drum major, senior Prissy Hall; conducting major, senior Garrett Lang; and assistant drum major, junior Ashley Hansen. The band will participate in several marching competitions this fall. The first competition will be the Blackhawk Marching Classic Oct. 7 at Pea Ridge stadium. This event is open to the public, and serves as a fundraiser for the Blackhawk bands, where many area bands will come to compete against each other for scorings from a panel of five judges. This is the fourth year for the band to host this event.
The band will then travel to Rogers Heritage High School the following Saturday, Oct. 14, to compete at the War Eagle Classic competition. The band’s Region marching assessment will be on Tuesday, Oct. 17, at Rogers High School. The band is coming off of three straight years of superior ratings at Region marching assessment, which is the highest scores than can be achieved at this contest.
Then, Saturday, Oct. 21, the band will travel to Siloam Springs for another invitational marching contest. The band placed in the top eight bands at this contest last year and marched in the
finals competition, which was a big achievement for the band. The final competition will be at the Arkansas State Band and Orchestra Association (ASBOA) State Marching Contest, in War Memorial Stadium, Little Rock, Monday, Oct. 30. This is just the second year for the state to have this event, and the first time for Pea Ridge to participate.