The band and color guard will be competing and performing at the annual Bands of America event on Oct. 18 at 5:00 pm in the St.Louis “The Dome at America’s Center” venue. The band will be performing in the Super Regional Championships that consist of two day performances from a maximum of 84 bands that will be judged for preliminary competition. The first day, Oct. 18, 52 bands will perform, then on Oct. 19, 32 bands will perform and finally on Saturday evening the final 14 bands will compete.

To prepare for the event, the band and color guard has been practicing even before the start of the school year. Practices have been during the school week and this fall break the band and color guard have been practicing from 5-9 pm on the football field. First year participant Freshman Maddie Musgraves is grateful to be in band and have the opportunity to perform in the event.

“I’m in the wind section and will be playing trumpet,” Musgraves said. ” The experience here for me has been honestly one of the best experiences I’ve ever had in my life and I’m really glad that I did it. ”

Last year marked the first time the band had participated in the event since a couple years. With experience from last year, the band is ready to showcase what they have learned throughout the practices by rehearsing certain sections of the show and having all sections do a full run at the end of practice. Senior Brooke Kolath is in percussion and plays the xylophone and marimba. Kolath is performing in one of her last competitions and is looking forward to see what this year’s competition holds for the band.

” I don’t think we’re going into compete really, we’re going in to gain experience and have understanding of what’s going on and that’s what last year was really about,” Kolath said. ” It was the first time that we’ve gone in year’s last year , so I guess it’s just a standard now that we go.”