As we marched off the field for the final time on Saturday night, we take a look back on the latest incredible season.

While the design for this season’s show began one full year ago for the directors, the work for the marchers began in May when the long-awaited show music was handed out. Ever since then, the work has been never-ending. Right after school ended, in the beginning of June, we attended the first of four weeks of band camp and introduced the freshmen, along with other new students, to the basics of marching band; which is harder than it looks. “Keep your legs straight,” and “don’t bend your knees.” We had practice for two hours, one day a week, for nearly every week of the summer and slowly began to memorize the music for the 10-minute long show and started friendships with the people in our sections. Finally, at the end of July up until the start of school, August 15, we had band camp. Three weeks of hot, long, tiring, yet rewarding, days where we were taught the choreographed movements and the music for the show and that’s when everything started to come together. Those three weeks were essential to becoming not only good marchers; but good friends as well. Finally by September, we had the entire show ready and onto the field. When we performed the whole show for the first time; that was when “An Eye Is Upon You” truly became a reality and not just a vision.

At long last, along came competition season. The first competition was the Legacy Marching Festival which was held on September 24th at Legacy High School in Broomfield, Colorado. We spent the morning practicing and then we headed to the high school. The rest of the day was spent watching other bands and performing. We received first place overall and the caption award for High Visual Effect, our final score was 77.9.

We had a two-week break in competitions after Legacy Marching Festival and we spent that time improving and cleaning up our music and our visuals during in and after school practices. Mr. Black always says, “We aren’t competing against the other bands, we are competing against ourselves,” and “Don’t let good get in the way of great,” and we tried our best to do just that. We worked harder than ever during those two weeks.

Next up was the Harrison Marching Festival at Harrison High School on October 15th. That morning we practiced and then we loaded up and headed south to Harrison High School. We got to watch a couple of bands that day; all of which were all great. After a preliminary performance, which landed us the closing performance at finals, we closed out the night as grand champions with a score of 82.15. At last, we had a performance that we could truly be proud of.

We worked that next week harder even than the previous weeks, because that Wednesday was the Regional competition. On the Tuesday of that week, everyone packed their bags for the Bands of America Super Regional Competition in St. Louis, Missouri which we would be leaving for just a couple hours after our Regionals performance. The next day after school we rehearsed in the cool weather and then we loaded up the trucks. It was cold that night at Liberty High School. We had a great Regionals performance and got first place with a score of 84. After a quick trip home to shower, we all headed back to school for the 15-hour bus ride to St. Louis.

Sleeping on a bus with 40-some other teenagers is not the most comfortable thing, but somehow we all managed. In the morning on Thursday, we stopped in Topeka, Kansas and had breakfast. After another hour on the buses, we arrived at Seaman High School to practice. When we arrived it was rainy, cloudy, and cold so we went under the bleachers to have a meeting. We reviewed the previous night’s show and decided what we needed to work on for that day. We had a short rehearsal after the meeting and then we loaded up the trucks and buses and continued on our way to St. Louis. By the time we had stopped for dinner and arrived at the hotel, it was already around 9 or 10 p.m. so we unloaded the buses and headed right up to our rooms. The next morning we were up early and ate our sack breakfasts on the bus on our way to the practice field. It was really nice playing in Missouri since there is so much more oxygen in the air there. We always sound better in Missouri. After we practiced and made some important changes and improvements, we headed downtown to eat at the Old Spaghetti Factory and take pictures at the arch, which is always a great time. The Dome at America’s Center in downtown St. Louis was the next stop for the day. We watched several bands and hung out with other bands for a while until we had to go warm up and play. The nerves on the way to the field were tangible. As we waited to take the field, we focused on the show we were about to have. According to several people, we put on “the show of our lives” that night; everyone felt great about the show and the fact that we played in the dome made it so much better. That night, we went to the City Museum to relax and have fun. Personally, I think that it is the best place on Earth because it is a giant playground for big kids; the whole 10-story building is filled with tunnels and slides and a whole bunch of other fun stuff. We didn’t leave there until they closed; 12:00 AM. Luckily, the next day we had a later morning so we got to sleep in. Once again, we went out and practiced in the morning. After that, we headed back to the dome to hang out and eat lunch. We waited for a couple of hours until we finally got to find out our placing and whether or not we would be in finals. Finally, it was announced that we were 2nd in our class and would be playing in finals. The order that you play in finals is chosen by picking numbers out of a hat, and we had to perform first. We skipped dinner and went straight to the trucks to get our uniforms and instruments and then headed to warm ups. As the first band performing, we were kind of seen as the “warm-up the audience” band, but we still rocked it and played even better that night than the night before. We placed 10th overall and got a score of 83.3. After the final retreat, we loaded the buses and headed back home.

We didn’t have a break after that busy weekend, because state week was upon us. We did our best that week to improve even more than we had in the previous weeks because our motto this year was “Bottoms up.” Our goal was to improve at every show and make each one better than the one before. At the final Thursday night practice, all of the seniors were very emotional, but they didn’t let that distract them. Everyone knew that we had to stay focused if we wanted to continue to improve. The next day, We had our final practice of the year and our chili dinner, which is always very emotional but also a lot of fun. While we were having our meeting that night, we found out that we had been selected to march in the 2018 Rose Bowl Parade in Pasadena, CA. We were so excited!  Saturday morning we returned to school for a short warm-up before our Semi-finals State performance at the Falcon Stadium on base. We did extremely well in prelims and got first in 4A with a score of 90.4. We “broke” 90 for the first time in several years, which was an amazing experience. We then went back to school for a meeting and lunch and to warm up again. Finally, the moment was upon us, State finals, as we waited to take the field, we were unbelievably excited, but also sad for the season to end. We played our best show of the season and after we played the final note and began to march off the field, everyone began to run off the field in excitement. By the time we got to the end of the tunnel, half the people were crying and everyone was hugging and congratulating each other. If you weren’t crying, you were on the verge of crying because you knew that would be the best performance that this band, with these people, in this show, would ever have. When the 5A bands were done with finals, all of the finalist bands took to the field for the final, Final Retreat. We, as always, had tons of fun during retreat. We got the caption award for High Visual and tied with Liberty for High General Effect. It was time, time to find out the top two bands in Colorado, “and in second place with a score of 90.25, 90.25, the Air Academy High School Marching Band!” The crowd went wild and the other bands all clapped. Liberty had won state with a score of 90.3! They were ecstatic, they were crying and jumping and screaming. For me, seeing how excited they were and how truly appreciative they were was worth more to me than winning, hands down. As soon as they released us, our whole band went to the Liberty kids and hugged and congratulated them. They deserved that win, from being 3rd and 4th at the first competition of the year to winning state; they improved so much and I am so proud of them.

What a season full of crazy new experiences. We accomplished our goals; which were to beat ourselves each time we took the field, and to put everything we had into each performance. This band should be so proud of what we accomplished this year, because we had an amazingly successful season. At the end of the day, we get to come home with metals, and we got to make friends that will last a lifetime. Those memories and the people will never be forgotten, and will remain some of the best, fondest things in our lives.  Congratulations Air Academy High School Marching Band, and here’s to another great season next year. Farewell “An Eye Is Upon You,” it’s been fun.