Serious Competition

Well, you think we would have figured it out several weeks ago, but marching band is serious business around here! Savannah had her first competition last Saturday in Sioux City. It was an all day affair, as in 18 hours! We went down for the evening finals and had our first marching competition experience. It was quite fun and also eye-opening. It is amazing to see a complete show and know how hard all those kids have worked to make it look so great. The POD placed 3rd overall at this competition, losing to 2 schools that are probably twice MOC-FV's size or more.

This Saturday we were in Sioux Falls for the Festival of Bands competition. The middle school marching band (7th & 8th graders) marched in the morning parade. They received a participation award since they were the only middle school band that marched (they don't let them officially compete against the high schools to save morale in the high school bands). :-)Duncan wasn't very positive most of the week about their sound, but they did a great job Saturday morning! We could hear them over the band that was in front of them and they were still 3 blocks away!

After the parade we spent some time with Duncan at Falls Park. Yes, there really is a waterfall in Sioux Falls, SD! And then we headed to the stadium for the field competition pre-lims. The high school band didn't march in the Sioux Falls parade because they had to march in a state mandated competition in Cherokee, IA in the morning. Then they rushed up to Sioux Falls for the field competition there. Everyone kept telling us how good the bands would be here, but it was still incredible! We placed 3rd in our class and made it to the evening finals. We ended up 4th overall (10 bands competed in the finals) and we were the smallest school once again. The kids really poured it on for the night show, especially since it was the 3rd time they had marched that day! Savannah is the band member to the right of the 30 yard line in this picture. We are finally figuring out how to pick her out of the crowd!