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All-Region  Band:

The Inside Story

By: Zach Gingerich

            You probably think I’m the biggest dork in the world for writing an article on this topic, but I don’t care because it was fun.  Anyway, we left on Friday right after 2^nd period and headed out for Searcy.  In my opinion, the trips there and back were the best parts of the whole thing.  We drove for a while, and we passed the time listening to music, throwing things at people, and prank calling others.  Then, we stopped at McDonald’s and ate lunch.  I was lucky, because the bus I was on was the first to get to the restaurant, so we didn’t have to wait too long.  The unfortunate people arrived later and had to wait in a line out the door and around the corner while the rest of us were already eating.  When we had all finally finished, we loaded back onto the bus and moved on.                

            When we finally arrived at the high school where we would practice, we all split up into the first and second bands.  For those of you who don’t know, we had to try out for All-Region and were put into (if we made it) one of two different bands, the first band being the best and the second being… second.  The bands get all day Friday and most of Saturday to practice, and then they perform in a concert for the parents on Saturday afternoon.  I, myself, made the first band, so I can tell you about it, but not the second.

            Our director was pretty cool.  He picked challenging music, but it wasn’t so hard that we couldn’t learn it before the concert.   We would practice for about 1 ½ to 2 hours, have a 10-15 minute break, and then practice some more.  After practicing for four hours, we to eat supper at a place where there were many different restaurants to choose from.  Some friends and I went to the Dixie Café and had a great time.  After eating and going through Hastings a couple of times, we headed back to the high school.  We practiced for another couple of hours and went home. 

            We met at our school again on Saturday morning at about 7:15 and went back to Searcy.  We practiced again for three hours and then headed to Harding University (where our concert would be played) to eat lunch.  We ate at the campus cafeteria, where they had everything from sausage biscuits to homemade ice-cream.  We then walked to the auditorium with our instruments to play in the concert. 

            All of the bands (Jr. High 1^st and 2^nd and Sr. High 1^st and 2^nd) played very well.  Every band had a different conductor with different preferences of music, so there was a wide variety of song-types. 

After 19 hours of playing our instruments and running around, we were all about ready to go home, so we met up with our parents and left.