The marching band went to Francis Howell High for a competition on Oct. 6, placing third in preliminaries and fourth in finals.

“With the show being fully complete, we can now clean and show how hard we have worked,” band director Mr. O’Donnell said.

After arriving at Francis Howell, the marching band members unloaded trailers and headed to the warm up area. Towards the middle of warm ups, it began storming, causing delays in the performance.

“I was a little annoyed, I would have preferred us to just perform instead of having to stay in uniform so long,” sophomore Michael Knapp said. After the storm kept coming, the directors of the competition decided to have the bands perform inside.

The way this worked was the band would stand still and play their music while guard members would do their work behind the band. After performing, the band headed back outside to change and go eat. They had a good hour or two to relax before heading back into the gym for awards. The band placed third out of six bands for preliminaries, and all the bands performing were going into finals.

As the rain began to clear up and the sun came out, for finals, it was decided they would perform on the field.

“I was happy that we were able to perform on the field but I was also annoyed we couldn’t lay down on the ground for the beginning of the show,” freshman Kara Lemke said.

Most of the band felt as Lemke did about marching on the field. They put their damp uniforms back on and warmed up again.

“We should perform for our band family and ourselves, the people who were here to watch you, got rained on with you, and waited for you until we performed,” band director Mrs. Magno said.

With that in their heads, they trooped down to the football field and finally performed our show. But first an electrical problem called for a rehearsed plan B, in which junior Sam Stewart had to play a tuba solo.

“I was nervous but also excited about the last minute solo,” Stewart said.

After a long day of delays and getting drenched in rain, we brought home two trophies and we were all very happy. The marching band will be performing at Potosi High School on Oct. 13, come support the band.