Band receives 1+ at festival

The school’s marching band came into the Southern Plains with two things: questions about what is going to happen and adversity. Because of the weather, the festival needed to be moved around multiple times to multiple locations and for the band, it means a change of tone and balance.  This festival is normally at the Andover District Stadium, but because of the weather, it was moved to Andover High School, but the Andover administration made them move it to the Wichita Sports Forum. “I thought we did really quite well given the circumstances. It was pretty chaotic by over there it was snowing, couldn’t warm up outside. So we kinda prepped for the scenario by warming at school, dressing at school. Basically going in there with instruments ready to play except for the instruments on the truck, we were able to line up in ten minutes. We didn’t get to the until sports forum at 12:20 and we got on the field at 12:40 to play at 12:45. I thought the kids handled it well,” band director Bryan Kirk said. The way the band prepared for the competition in rehearsals is the reason why the band got a 1-plus from two of the judges and a 1 from the other judge with scores of 76, 76, and 75 all out of 80. “Our focus in rehearsal that we have had has helped. Our band directors and the student leaders have also helped,” senior drum major Gage Terrell said.  Not only did the band get straight ones for their performance, but the percussion also got a 1 from the percussion judge, scoring 71 out of 100 points. “The percussionists have a good section leader usually that tells us to practice and tells us what to improve on,” sophomore percussionist Cora Edge said. The color guard also did really well. They scored a 91 out of 100 to give them a 1-plus from the color guard judge which is an improvement from last year when they got a two. “I think it was mainly the team bonding. Last year, we had the typical drama with teenage girls (...). Our seniors [last year], when they wrote the songs, they did not get along together and not everyone went to all of the practices. This year we had a really great start right after band camp. Our seniors worked really hard together and most practices the entire team was there and it made a whole lot of a difference.” sophomore color guard member Ella Boozer said. The band did a really nice job on Wednesday. They were only one of the two bands there to get straight ones.