“It was the best performance they have ever done, hands down,” said band director Munoz. Fossil Ridge High School’s Marching Band traveled up to Colorado Springs on November 3 to play at the Air Force Academy. They won with a score of 86.6, beating Legacy High School, who got 86.15, and Fairview High School, who got 83.45.

The scoring for the state competition is out of one hundred. There are three categories: “Music Performance”, “Visual Performance”, and “General Effect.” The music and visual scores are out of twenty points each, and “General Effect” is out of sixty. Originally, the band had a score of 86.8, but due to some parents standing in a place they were not supposed to. The parents were helping set up the equipment and ended up watching the performance in the wrong place. Because of this, Fossil’s score dropped to 86.6.

“The performance was so amazing. It was snowing and cold but we went out there and played our best!” said senior Drum Major Jessie Griffith. On the day that the band went up to Colorado Springs, a blizzard began outside. The band went on and played despite the weather. When instruments get cold, they tend to go flat, and the percussion instruments tend to go sharp, so they could have sounded very out of tune. According to Munoz, though, with all of the music experience that the students have, they sounded in tune.

The band’s program was entitled EnLIGHTenment and included music from “The Walk” by Alan Silvestri, “The Hand of Fate” by James Newton Howard, “Hymn to the Sun with the Beat of the Mother Earth” by Satoshi Yagisawa, and “Ascend” by Carol Brittin Chambers.

Fossil has not won a state title in band since 2014, and the students, especially the seniors, wanted to make this year the year they won. “The minute they walked off the field, and they have this feeling, it’s unlike anything else in the world, playing with all your peers, being engaged and tuned in with each other and focused and they’re on fire and they have this feeling when they come off the field and they know that they did it. There is nothing like it and that is why you do it. You don’t do it to win anything, you do it for that feeling, and they got it,” said Munoz.

For the future, the band wants to stay as united and as much of a family as they are now. The band directors said that, for next year, they want to try a program called Bands of America. Instead of just being in the state of Colorado, the band would compete nationally. They want to grow more as a program and believe this will help them do so.

If you see any students apart of the Marching Band in the hall, tell them congratulations.