Westview Highschool Marching Band

It has been nice having Kevin and Jessica be a part of the Band program at Westview High School. During marching season it keeps them busy, in shape, and having a lot of fun. They started off the season marching in the Beaverton Celebration Parade, and have also played at the football games. They participated in their first band competition for the fall season this past Saturday Sept 27th, at the Sunset Marching Band Classic. Their show this year is titled "STORM" and they are quite excited about it. Jessica was on the student committee at the end of last school year to help pick the theme. They actually had almost the whole show learned by this competition- which they hadn't done in the last two years so they were happy about that. Brian and I went to the preliminary performance and stayed until lunch, then went back at 5pm for the Finals. We really were enjoying being outside in the fresh air. The competition seemed to be much more pleasant this year- and it dawned on us that it was probably because it wasn't raining and cold like the last two past years where we huddled under blankets and umbrellas!

Out of 13 bands they got 6th place with a score of 65.85. The Top score was held by Southridge with the official score of 79.75 (who also was awarded High General Effect, High Music, High Visual, High Percussion, and Outstanding Drum Major. As you might of well guessed, they were pretty awesome- they only were beaten out for High Auxiliary and Outstanding Soloist.) Anyway, they felt pretty good about their performance and we look forward to seeing their scores rise as they perfect the show. Just yesterday they came home from practice saying they were adding some new visual elements.

I have volunteered to help out with the uniforms- handing them out and hemming etc. Well this year since I marked on the volunteer sheet that I would help sew (thinking hems again- etc) I was asked to help sew some of the colorguard flags for the closer part of the show. Well, this has turned out to be harder and more time consuming than I thought. They looked real cool on paper- black, grey shades, white, and red curved triagular swooshes, but getting those pre-cut pieces to go together and lay flat, and finish all the seams has been a nightmare! I have only finished 1 & 1/2 flags out of the 4 they gave me to do, and I've spent over 3 days on them. I was told they would get easier after I had done my first one. Which is true- the second hasn't been as bad, but I only wish it looked better! At Saturday's competition, I sure spent more time looking at everyone's flags than I ever have done before! I am to have them finished for the girls to use on October 11th for their next competition. Luckily, the flags are far away on the field, so you can't examine them too closely!

You can go to the Westview band web page and see pictures and links to the performance http://www.westviewband.org/