Kingston Five Seasons Marching Band Competition

It’s hard to believe that already it is midterm. One minute it is the first day of my junior year and the next minute I’m halfway through the first term of my junior year. They always say it goes by fast but those nights I’m cramming for tests or just trying to finish a lab report it seems that my high school career is never ending. I was recently looking at my schedule for marching band and realized that after this weekend we only had 3 competitions left! Sadly, I soon realized that the fun of marching band couldn’t last forever. Granted, I still have next year but that is far off.

This weekend we had a competition at Kingston stadium. It was hosted by the CR Community School District which means that we were scored but didn’t get a placing, in other words we were exhibition. Nevertheless, we were still excited for our performance. It wouldn’t be the most important performance, but it still did carry some weight because we performed right after the Jefferson Band and right before the Washington Band. These are two of our biggest competitors not only in marching band but in just about every other sport. Unfortunately, some people in band don’t take it as serious simply because we aren’t being judged but most of us knew we needed to do well. We don’t know our scoring until Monday when we get back to school but I think we did okay.

Before we competed at the competition we had to march out onto the field with the little middle school students. Every year before this competition starts Jefferson, Washington, and Kennedy march onto the field with middle school students from the CR Community School District and we play the Star Spangled Banner, America, and another fun song that the band directors select. It is usually pretty funny because the middle school students have never done any kind of marching in their lives and some of them find it difficult to simply walk on the field when directed, put their horns up when directed and play their music correctly when directed. This exercise is simple for us because we are used to practically running around the field in step while playing music a lot more difficult. We usually rehearse it a few times before the actual performance, just to make sure that everyone will stay together as we play it. Of course, it proceeded to rain as we were practicing and even harder later when we were performing it. It had been pretty cold out all day but the rain was just icing on top of the cake. It was worse for the middle school students though because we were suited in our full uniforms and they just had t-shirts and jeans. Luckily the rain didn’t stop the rest of the competition from going off without a hitch.