The Campbell County and Thunder Basin high school marching bands are gearing up for their two major events of the season.
The Camels and Bolts head to Laramie for the University of Wyoming-Troopers Marching Band Invitational on Saturday. A week later, they travel to Casper to compete in the State Marching Band Festival.
CCHS will play its tribute to Randall Standridge’s “Letters From a Prisoner of War,” which it performed for veterans and others recently at Camels Stadium. Retired U.S. Army Sgt. Nate Fulton will continue to serve as the narrator, reciting a soldier’s letters to his parents from before and during the war he was serving in.
The team has cleaned up its show a lot since band camp in August, and last week’s performance was one of the squad’s best so far as it prepares to peak at state, senior drum major Allison Gingerich said.
“It’s getting down to that point where we can show how hard we’ve been working,” she said about the field show coming together and getting tighter.
CCHS senior Daniel Marasco also thought the band has improved, especially as it pertains to its precise movements, crisp marching and overall musicality.
“When we started, it was kind of all over the place,” he said.
The senior trombone player admitted he is nervous about the upcoming events, where the band will be judged on its field show.
“But I think the work we’ve been doing has paid off and we’ll do real good at state,” Marasco said.
Director Steve Oakley agreed.
“The band has really come a long ways,” he said. “They are now playing musically, and not the just the right notes. Now they’re playing the right music.”
As for their marching, “they’re not just cutting corners,” he said. “They’re doing the drilling how it’s supposed to be done. This group doesn’t want to be good, it wants to be great.”
The ultimate goal for Laramie and Casper is for the audience to take something away from the performance, he said.
“I think this will be the show that people will be talking about at the end of time,” Oakley said.
A performance to remember
Thunder Basin students and band director Steve Schofield also have grown more confident in their show, Howard Shore’s “Lord of the Rings Symphony.”
“Some of the people that were struggling in August are now solid marchers and players,” Schofield said. “A lot of maturity has happened in a short amount of time.”
TBHS senior and alto saxophonist Cole McDougald believes the TBHS band is going to do well in competition, but still has some things to clean up.
The biggest goals for the upcoming competitions are to make no mental mistakes and have a solid performance that everyone is proud of, Schofield said.
“Hopefully, it’s one that they will remember for the rest of their lives,” he said.
The Casper performance won’t signal the end of the season for the Thunder Basin and Campbell County bands. Both squads move on to concert band. They’ll also perform as pep bands for football playoff games and basketball as prep sports moves into the winter season.
“It’s a funny thing,” Schofield said. “We do all of this work and suddenly it’s over and (then it’s) on to the next thing.”
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