FHN’s marching band starts to thaw from their fall Freeze. The show took hundreds of hours of practice and many sleepless nights from students, but with hard work came the successes of the season.

“[The show was] about being a kid and having fun in the snow,” Stegeman said “You get in your overalls, right. You pad yourself up, put three layers of socks on because you know you are going to get wet. You are trying desperately to not get your body wet with the cold water of the snow. It’s about that, being a kid and going out having fun in the snow.”

Each new marching band season jumps off to a rocky start, but this one was especially hard for them because of the intricacy that the show held.

“This year was a hard show, you got ‘how big are those ramps out there’ that people are sliding down and you got kids dancing,” senior drum major Grace Sickendick said. “You are teaching nerds how to dance. I love them, I’m a nerd, I am a super nerd, but only a couple of these kids have a dance background or a sports background, so it’s a lot to put into one season.”

Throughout the season the band went on overnight trips and spent over 50 continuous hours with one another.

“[Iowa] was a hard competition,” Sickendick said. “We had to compete at the buttcrack of dawn, but you know, it’s fun. As exhausting as it is from being together, you are able to go ‘Alright I don’t need to think about school right now, this is my band family.’”

This season gave lots of opportunities for seniors. Senior Matthew Juhlin, despite this being only his second year in band, was placed in the position of drum major due to all his hard work.

“It means a lot [to be a drum major],” Juhlin said. “It means that Mr. Stegeman trusts me enough to put me in that position despite not knowing me all that well, but I’m really glad he did because it has given me so many opportunities to push as hard as I can.”

Marching band ended their season off with performing at St. Louis Super-Regional BOA, Bands of America, where they competed against bands in their class, or bands similar in their size.

“I was extremely happy [at finding out FHN placed 11th in their class],” Juhlin said. “I wasn’t entirely sure how the run had gone after performing, but it was great to feel that it had been a really good last competition run.”