Marching Knights 6th in national competition
Their season has now come to an end, but 2017 will be a year the members of the North Penn Marching Knights never forget.
As they prepare for their final public show of the season later this week, the marching band has earned the title of one of the best bands in the country.
“We faced 16 of the best bands across seven states, and are pleased to take a sixth place finish,” said band Director Ted Heller.
“Besides all the accolades they
received this season, one of the fondest memories was performing in Met Life Stadium,” home of the NFL’s New York Giants and Jets, during the US Bands National Competition there on Saturday.
In their first season with Heller back in charge as band director, the Marching Knights topped their group of similar sized bands at a Pennsylvania state marching band competition in late October, then advanced to a regional competition in New Jersey, where they once again finished in first place on Nov. 4, earning the trip to the national competition. Throughout the season, the band performed a show called “Hope Rules,” which portrays the band’s vision of what hope looks like: a new life, despair and hate, and the ultimate triumph of hope in the end.
The final performance of that show may provide hope to North Penn football fans, after the Knights’ last-minute playoff loss on Friday.
“With the football season coming to an end, the last field show performance of ‘Hope Rules’ will be Wednesday, at 7 p.m. in Crawford Stadium,” Heller said.
That free “Community Night with the Knights” concert was originally scheduled for Monday night, Nov. 13, but has been rescheduled to Nov. 15 due to poor weather, and Heller said he hoped it will be “warmer and drier” on the alternate date. Those who attend are asked to bring canned or nonperishable goods to donate to local nonprofit food pantry Manna on Main Street.