Next, the band was warming up, and everything sounded correct, and all the marchers were ready to go. Unfortunately, there were two band members that had broken spats that needed to be repaired quickly. Mrs. Koch was also prepared for this by having her backpack of handy things to fix all these problems.
That wasn’t the last thing to go wrong. The auxiliary somehow brought an extra flag to the parade route. Mrs. Scheer did some quick thinking and removed the flag from the pole and decided she would just walk the route with the pole. Mrs. Koch said, “Or, we could just give it to Keven and he can use it as a baton!” Mrs. Hausmann, Mrs. Scheer, and Keven all laughed at this comment.
The parade was about to begin as the New Haven Marching Shamrocks got in their lines and were waiting behind the Wright City band. While they were waiting, Alison Long was giving the younger marcher behind her a little pep talk to reassure her that she will do fine. “Just remember the three whistles for horns up and you’ll do great!” When the Wright City band got far enough down the street, the Shamrocks were off!
The band only had to do one Texas turn on the parade route, and it was at the very end, so there really wasn’t an audience. After they finished the turn, they marched past other bands that they were competing against. You could see the pride throughout the block of marchers, how much they wanted to look better than the other bands that were watching.
This parade was the shortest parade the band has had the whole season. It was just one street, and they marched past one judge with just enough time to regain their strength to play for the second judge. The second judging station was slightly more challenging because they had to march up a hill while playing. Even though playing was more difficult, the band was able to keep their spacing, diagonals, and lines intact. This is what won them their marching caption.
The band’s music score came in third, and both judges scored them about the same, with averages of 145 and 142 out of 200 possible points. Both of the marching judges ranked New Haven 10 points above the other bands in their class. The drumline took first in their class by 15 points. When it came down to the auxiliary, Brooke Bockting said, “The cold definitely made it harder to perform, and we could’ve practiced more before the parade to help with our scores.” Beth Schenk talked about how it was difficult for her to get her flag off the pole when she got on the bus. The auxiliary as a whole feels like they didn’t have their best performance this weekend, and thats why they didn’t get the auxiliary caption award. The score for the auxiliary was 109, which put them in second place.
The New Haven Marching Shamrocks ended with a season full of first place trophies, experiences, and memories. This season is going to be hard to beat with their first place winning scores!
-by Abby Perdue