State Marching Band is being held virtually this year.  Some people might think that this is no big deal.  However, for those Band Students, this is their everything! If you ask any previous band student what their favorite memory is, odds are, they will tell you it was State Marching Band!

We understand that COVID has changed how we have to do things.  However, it seems that some sports have had to change little, while other activities are being asked to change EVERYTHING!  And that is not fair! Our Band Students are just as important as our athletes!

Marching Band practice is held only once a week.  Then they play at only a handful of football games.  From the start of the school year, until State Marching Band, they will have gotten together to practice and play at the games maybe 15 times. However, football practices daily and they compete weekly.  We know football is high contact...band is NO contact.  Football sweats and shares equipment....band does not (Drummers are being assigned one type, and sticking to it).  The odds of COVID being spread through Marching Band is way less then football, yet football will still get a regionals and a state, while Marching Band gets nothing? (We used Football just as an example)

Basketball is just getting started.  Will they have a State? If Marching Band does not get state, then Basketball should not either. What about Wrestling?  All these activities have been reconfigured to accommodate this new normal.  Why has Marching Band not been given this opportunity?  

Maybe you think that Virtual State Marching Band is enough. Do you think that football players and basketball players want to compete with no one around? Recording yourself in an empty field for state will hold the same value as practicing on an empty field. The experiences lost by not going to State in person will not be able to be made up. High School is about experiences! Think our kids will remember when they performed in front of a video camera?  We think not!!

 Some might argue that State can not take place because there are so many bands at one time competing. What if we worked around that? What if there were time slots, and only a few bands came into the building during that time? Spectators could not be allowed. No concession stands. Or, what if the teams met with other teams in their regions, performed their musical shows, as if they were at an actual Regionals, and the recordings of these shows were used to judge for the State awards? What if we just tried? What if we opened our hearts and our minds to the fact that ALL our HS kids are important.  They are worth this effort.  They are worth your time.