Plymouth Marching Band performs their grand opener while judges walk around examining them intently. Photo provided by: Mrs. Goble
By Anayeli Miranda
Thousands of notes are being played within minutes. Everyone matters and without one person it can cause a disaster. There is no difference between freshmen or seniors because they all are required to be on the same level. Marching Bands all around have this standard, and interestingly Plymouth High School was the host for 15 bands at the annual Harvest Festival.
The 13th annual Harvest Festival‘s name was a mystery; therefore, Mr. Bryan Ames was kind enough to explain the name of the festival, “The Harvest Festival takes place right as fall begins and the trees begin to change colors. The name comes from the seasonal change.” The season was kind enough to create a beautiful sunny day which brought in many on lookers that wanted to watch the bands. Mr. Ames claims “This year, the turnout for the event was amazing. Several thousand people came to the competition and filled the stadium for many hours.” Thus creating a bigger audience for the students performing for the crowd.
All the bands do not know the school and could get lost. Mr. Ames fixed this problem by making sure that “every band will have a host and a tour guide to escort them around campus to get to their warm-up and stretching areas.” Junior Traci Longanecker had the chance to be a tour guide. She felt like she “was shaking the hands of a celebrity,” when she shook hands with the director of Western, the State Champion of Class C bands.
All students had to volunteer for the festival. Sophomore Hope Babcock was a rope puller, a person that ropes off the entrances to the bleachers when a band performs in order to make sure there is no one walking across the bleachers causing a disruption. Working this job, she got the chance to watch some of the shows and she “really enjoyed watching the different bands.” In particular she enjoyed the show “Alice and Wonderland.” Aside from the other shows she herself was a performer for the Plymouth Marching Band as a color guard member. Hope thinks “It is nice to have all of your friends and family there,” when performing in front of the home crowd.
This year is the last Harvest Festival for the seniors in the Plymouth Marching Band. Junior Jack Garrison, before the performance, spoke a motivational speech that made the seniors shed some tears. Garrison thought “that was really cool.” Senior Victoria Fox expresses her feelings about this being her last performance on the Plymouth Football field, as part of the band after her performance. Fox says that she “will remember how [she] felt coming off the field, and feeling so excited.”
Agreeing with Fox, junior Aiden Osman agrees that the performance was amazing. Osman talks about the crowd and how he “knew they would be pumped” because the last band performance was “the ones they wanted.”
The Harvest Festival was an interesting event that will forever be in many people’s memories especially the seniors because it was their last performance. Sophomore Wesley Seidelmann comments that he will remember “everyone working together.” It was a night to remember.
