From nervousness to excitement, Pride Band Members feel a range of emotions before the first competition. With many pratices starting over the summer, the band is more than ready. As they march down to the field, the feeling is the same everyone wants to do well aims for perfection to help the team earn points. From the seniors who have extensive experience to the freshman, who have none, everyone knows what needs to be done.
“I think I got my section prepared. I have to skip out on most of the fun to make sure everyone is [prepared],” senior Donavan Royer said. “[running through the show] I messed up a couple time playing-wise, marching I don’t think I messed up at all.”
To join Pride, you have to audition to see if you qualify. But some people over the summer for one reason or another quit and the have to find replacements to fill the holes
“One of my friends quit and so Callahan told my brother to call me and convince me to join,” freshman Blair Shroyer said. “It had a bigger effect when I was learning the music’ cause I didn’t have it as memorized as everybody else.”
Sometimes the competition is out of your control. Last year are competition at Blue Springs South was canceled due to the rain. So when there was rain in the forecast everyone was nervous.
“We did have delays, but ultimately got to perform twice [prelims and finals],” junior Kaylie VanNess said. “[Drum Majors] have been working on it since July, we’ve been working on this routine, so it’s pretty muscle memory, I did have a few mistakes in the first run-through, but I fixed them for the second run-through of the show.”
To help ease the pressure of the whole competition section leaders try to lighten the mood by playing games with their section joking around and making funny airgrams. Airgarms are read off before the show happens. Usually, it is just the family saying love you or good luck.
“You can have fun with airgrams but there’s a limit,” Royer said “There was an anonymous low brass player that asked a friend’s mom to Homecoming. The kid that asked the other kid got out of focus. So we had to put an end to it.”
Even with the shenanigans going at the competition, Platte County was able to have two successful runs in the preliminaries and the finals. Platte County came seventh overall in the Blue Springs Invitational.
