Marching band wraps up their season on rainy field
As the marching band began to march onto the field for the last time, the heavens opened and it began to downpour. The students continued to play their best and finish the show. As they ran off for the final time, students began to look back on their season with the Marching Dukes and all of the fun they had this year. Great job Dukes!
To begin the season, the students went through three days of band camp. Spending most of the day inside and outside, they all learned basic fundamentals of marching and began the drills for the halftime show.
The students also were able to create bonds at band camp with each other that would carry all through the season, whether it be from any of the group games they played, the section dinners, or sectionals.
At long last, the first game arrived. The four drum majors: (from left to right) Jimmy Chaudoin, Olivia Braun, Maya Moran, and Andrew Hilgendorf, led the band over every Friday night to get the crowd ready for the game and to get the band pumped for halftime.
Applying what they learned at band camp to life, the trumpet and mellophone sections glide step and guide their way around the track. A glide step is similar to how you normally walk, just your toes are flexed more towards the sky. Guiding is how the band stays in a straight line.
As the band set up for pregame, Andrew Hilgendorf prepared himself to conduct his first song as a drum major. Each game, the drum majors switched off who was conducting on the big stand for pregame, as well as switching off for each song.
For the first game, the band performed just “Holiday” and “Still Breathing,” both by Green Day. Because it was the first show, there were some hiccups and problems, but the students knew they could only get better from there.
After halftime each game, the band stands right in front of the student section and plays for the remaining students. Here, Siena Olson, a junior, tries to play her mellophone while on senior Alex Kritikos’s back. The band continued to keep the fun going long after the game ended.
For the second game the theme was hawaiian. Although the band couldn’t dress up, they still kept the fun going from pregame until after the football team left the field.
Even the flags had tons of fun this marching season. During pregame, they are front and center for the entire crowd to see. Carly Laurx, one of the senior captains, helped to keep the fun moving from band camp all the way through the last game.
Before the band walked to the East side of the field for halftime, some senior marchers would include everyone in a pregame chant of “Don’t Suck” and a “Happy Birthday” ballad to a previous drum major, all part of a good luck ritual.
As Homecoming rounded the corner, the band faced extremely warm temperatures, upwards of 90 degrees. Yet they were still out there for game night, sweating through their wool uniforms and performing their best.
That night, the temperature was so hot that the marchers hands were pruning under their gloves, as if they had taken a bath or a shower. In addition the tape on the flags began melting off, and some of the silks began to slide up – and off – the poles.
The melting tape continued to get worse as the flags performed their feature to “Runaway Baby” by Bruno Mars. But they didn’t complain, and continued to perform and blow the crowd away.
During pep band the band let loose and tried their best to cool off, which proved difficult since they couldn’t take off their jackets. Even the flags got in on it. Since they really couldn’t flag like the band played, they screamed out every tune, both just the melody and the actual words to some of the songs.
The final game came too quickly for some in the marching band. It was time to celebrate the seniors and go out with a bang. Literally. It began pouring rain during pregame and halftime, and only then.
It was hard for both the band and the flags to perform. The band kept getting more water than they could handle in their instruments, making it hard to push air out of all of the valves. As soon as the silk of the flags got wet, they became heavy, like “six foot soaking wet q-tips,” as some of the girls described them.
In the midst of the chaos, Mr. Pavlik and Mr. Riddle kept the band running like a well oiled machine. No amount of rain would stop them from having the band go out for halftime and give them everything they’ve got on the last game of the season.
Looking like a bunch of ghosts in their ponchos, the band ran off the field looking for some water and some warmth. At this point, the marchers were soaked completely through. Right before they began the halftime show, the skies opened and rain thundered down on the band, soaking them before the drum majors could even count them off.
(From left to right) Will Salek, Eric Doberstein, Sam Griffin, and Andrew Hilgendorf, seniors, cheered on the football players as they continued on through the fourth quarter. They led the band through a series of chants and screamed at the top of their lungs.
Thank you to the Marching Band for an incredible season! We look forward to all you have in store as the year progresses.
About the Contributor
Madeleine DeGrace, Y's Tales Editor in Chief
Madeleine DeGrace is a senior on staff. This is her fourth year in a journalism class, and she loves it. She is editor in chief of the 100 year yearbook...
