Proud Sound marching band takes first place overall at District III

Weiser’s Proud Sound Marching band traveled to Boise on Oct. 22 to compete in the Mel Shelton District III Marching Band Festival. 

 The festival is a showcase of high school bands from all over the Treasure Valley and takes place on the blue turf of BSU’s Albertsons Stadium. 

 A total of 28 bands came together on this cold, windy, and at times rainy, Saturday to compete in one of five divisions to see who would come out on top. The bands also competed for five individual caption awards including best auxiliary (color guard), best percussion, best musical performance, best visual and best general effect.

 Like many bands Weiser began work on their show titled “Star Trek: Into Darkness”, months in advance of the competition season. The students were given their music at the end of the last school year and then participated in a weeklong camp in early August to start learning drill and choreography. 

 The competition season is quite short so to gain more performance practice the band performed their show at halftime during the Wolverine varsity football games. 

 The Proud Sound competed at their first competition on Oct. 1 at Kuna High School. Weiser came in second in a field of seven bands for their division. 

 They then traveled to Vallivue High School on Oct. 15 for the Treasure Valley Festival of Bands where they were awarded first place against close rival Payette High School. They also came home with awards in best music, best general effect, best visual and best color guard.

 The program schedule for the District III competition looked a bit different this year. In the past the bands played in order of division from the smaller 2A classification up to the larger 5A-large class. Each band competed for top honors in their division and an additional sweepstakes trophy was awarded to the top scoring band overall.

 This year the division performance order was randomly selected and started with the 3A classification and ended with the 5A-small class. Another difference was how the sweepstakes award was chosen. A finals showcase was held after the preliminary classification awards. Included in the finals were the top bands from each division as well as the next top seven highest scoring bands.  

 Weiser played at 9:39 a.m. in the 3A classification. They competed against Payette High School, Parma High School, and Homedale High School. Nerves were high as they took to the field following long time rival Payette. 

 They kept the crowd entertained and cheering as they played music from the recent Star Trek movies as well as some classic themes from the original television series. 

 It was a time of reflection and doubt, for some even tears, as the band put their instruments away following their performance. Each member replaying the show in their head trying to place each mistake and calculate if it would be the difference between first and second place. As one of the first bands to play it would be a long wait to see if their efforts paid off.

 After the last band performed and while the judges tabulated their results, the crowd was treated to a performance by the always energetic and entertaining Keith Stein Blue Thunder Marching Band. 

 In the 3A classification, Weiser was awarded first place overall as well as first place for auxiliary, best music performance, best visual performance, best percussion, and best general effect. Payette received second place overall and third place auxiliary. Parma was third place overall and Homedale got second place auxiliary.

 When asked about the win Weiser School District’s band director Jake Fortin had this to say, “I think it’s great. It really is a great testament to the work the kids have done all season. A testament to the culture we have in Weiser and the expectations that everyone has of us, so it’s always great to go out and fulfill those. It’s awesome and now we get to go out and do it again.”

 With their first-place win, Weiser was in the finals. So, it was back into uniforms and a quick warm up rehearsal before taking the field once again, this time under the stadium lights. 

 Knowing that they had already won their division, Fortin told them to just have fun with it. They left it all on the field playing what is probably their best performance of the season.  

 Weiser ended up in 11th place for the sweepstakes finals as they were playing against some much larger bands.

 “I am so proud, they worked so hard,” said color guard coach Mimi Rodriguez. “Coming back, I didn’t know the talents of the group. Right of the bat they pulled off really difficult equipment like swing flags. I’m so proud of every single one of my members.”

 Sophomore bass drummer, Serena Boles said this about how it felt to hear that Weiser received best percussion, an award that has evaded them in previous competitions. “Pretty great since we lost by eight points to Payette at Vallivue. Obviously, the percussion celebrated in that moment when we were supposed to be modest. It felt pretty great, I wasn’t expecting it honestly.”

 “This has been the best season by far that Weiser’s had in my four years of high school,” said Senior Drum Major Jayden Anderson, “This performance was our best performance of the entire season. It’s a great way to end my marching senior year.”

 The Weiser band will be switching gears now for concert band. The band has their annual Christmas concert on Dec. 12 at 7 p.m. in the high school auditorium.