Applause fills the stadium as the marching band plays the final note of their show. Although the season has ended, members have months of memories and performances to look back on. Assistant band director Detrich Morrison-Jones comments on this season’s show.

“This is a show that is kind of a challenge overall,” Morrison-Jones said. “Musically speaking, this is a level above what we’ve done for the past couple of years.”

Despite the difficulty of the show’s design, drum major Kylee Dieter says the band has been thriving.

“We’ve been scoring higher than in previous years,” Dieter said. “In one of our competitions, I believe we almost got an 80. That’s really good, especially for how early on it was.”

Senior Megan England shares that the band did well this season.

“I think that the band’s performance has been pretty strong this whole season,” England said. “It’s been consistently powerful and everyone’s working really hard.”

Colorguard member Kate London adds that the marching band’s performance this year has been exceptional in comparison to previous seasons.

“I’ve been in the program for seven years now, and this is definitely the best show we’ve ever put on,” London said.

Morrison-Jones partially attributes the band’s success to the sense of community among its members.

“A band that gets along is always better than a band that doesn’t,” Morrison-Jones said.

But not every performance was ideal. For Dieter, one competition in particular could have used some improvement.

“Our semi-state one was a little rough because we had all this wind happen at the wrong time and half our sound system went down before the show,” Dieter said. “But we survived.”

One tough show wasn’t the only difficulty that marching band faced this year. London details another issue they encountered.

“We used to be a lot larger and, even though we’re combined with East now, we’re kind of getting smaller and there’s less than 150 kids total,” London said.

According to Dieter, working through the challenges this year has taught her some important lessons.

“I think I’ve learned a lot about resilience and keeping with things,” Dieter said. “With it being my fourth year, it gets to a point where you’ve done it for so long, you really have to find new ways to enjoy the activity.”

London says that she also learned a lot from this band season.

“I’ve learned the importance of doing your best and trying really hard even when you don’t want to,” London said. “This season was the closest I feel like we’ve ever gotten to state and every single day I worked harder than I’ve ever worked before.”