Band brings home Excellent rating

Last Saturday the Hot Springs County High School marching band competed at the state marching festival at the Casper Events Center, performing their show "Women of Pop" and earning an Excellent rating, a 2 on the three-point scale where a 1 is a Superior and a 3 is Good.

Band director Drew Brown further explained the band is judged in five categories: Music 1, where they earned an Excellent; Music 2, where they earned a Superior; and Marching 1 and 2, and Drumline, where they earned Excellent ratings. He noted the band is critiqued by a different judge in each of the five categories.

Brown said the band received a lot of positive reinforcement from the judges, and it was the first time in 13 years Thermopolis had a team there so there are some little things that need cleaning up. "We're always working toward finding balance in the band, and just cleaning up our steps. Our formations were really tight which was good."

This is a young band, Brown said, with only two seniors and a "ton of freshmen," but the students have really stepped up in learning a new way of doing things. "I thought our kids that were brand new to it really worked their tails off to get to where we ended up."

The Thermopolis band had 20 students at the competition, and we were up against 20 other schools. Brown added we were only one of two Class 2A schools there, the other being Pinedale. "We were the smallest band," he said. "The next smallest band had 20 more people than us."

Brown was excited to see how many parents made it to state, and the announcer made a big deal about how excited they were to have Thermopolis back for the first time in 13 years. Other bands cheered Thermopolis on and Rock Springs even gave them a card. "I think people around the state," Brown said, "are excited to see the Thermopolis marching band back at it."

Those who were unable to make it to state competition can check out the band's show during halftime at this Friday's football game against Burns. "The support from the community and the school has been insane this year," Brown said. "It's been super awesome getting the kids pumped up. I think people are excited to see the marching band again, which is a good thing, and it's only going to get bigger and better."

With the state marching competition behind them, Brown said the transition is beginning toward concert band. "We still have one more football game, and then basketball season is right around the corner, but we're going to spend a lot of time working toward the Christmas concert on Dec. 20."

Before that, though, the bands and choirs will be plenty busy. This weekend the middle school choir is going to Worland for the Middle School Choir Honor Clinic, and next weekend will see choir students at Laramie for MANCAMP and Wyoming Women of Song, and saxophone and flute players are heading to Casper for Saxofluticon on Oct. 27, as part of the 74 flutists and 140 saxophonists getting together. The middle school band also has their Fall Showcase on Nov. 1 and the jazz band is opening for the Big Sky Trio on Nov. 7.