By james art LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – The Lubbock High School Marching Band is getting ready to compete at the state competition for the second year in a row.
From summer band practice to marching in the Alamodome, Westerners are ready to show off what they’ve learned this season.
On Friday afternoon, the band had their final home practice before leaving for San Antonio on Sunday morning. The Westerners will practice on the road in San Marcos before taking on the state competition at 9:35 a.m. Monday.
Sax student Anna Johnson remembers what it was like to represent the Hub City in San Antonio last year.
“It was amazing, especially being able to go as a freshman. I know many of the adults had to make their way there. They didn’t get to go until their senior year, last year,” she said. “So just being able to go as a freshman and step into that huge dome, it was just overwhelming, like it was so cool.”
The band also managed to perform in 2017, but it was the Westerners’ first appearance in 33 years. Senior drummer Toby Tyner says band director Dallas Bayless has been instrumental in the band’s recent success.
“It’s been like a complete overhaul of the band program, a steady improvement since he came in,” he said. “Made like just a lot of work ethic from these incoming freshmen, especially. I don’t know what clicked, but something happened.
Bayless says that while the band’s program is the same, it’s not the same band from year to year.
“We have 17 seniors this year and we have 81 freshmen in the band. So it’s really a whole different group. So it was like starting from scratch,” he said.
Freshman Bella Brockway is not only thrilled to have made it through her freshman year, but also the show behind it.
After thinking about it for a decade, Bayless created the Dash show. It tells the story of life, presenting the dash between the year you are born and the year you die, and the metaphor of life as a race. It goes from birth to childhood, graduation, wedding bells, careers and celebrating it all as you grow older.
“It’s a great show for my first year,” Brockway said. “A lot of music is a story, but especially with our show, how it tells the story of life and the story of the race of life, I think it’s great to have.”
While the Westerners hope to win the best results, Bayless says that is not the most important thing.
“I love music. I’m all about the music, but what we do here in the band is build better people. They learn discipline, teamwork and leadership. They learn how to be a part of something bigger than themselves,” he said.
Bayless says he will live stream Monday morning’s performance on the Lubbock High School Westerner Band Facebook page.
The Western band boosters also helped raise more than $4,000 from community members to support the band’s trip to state.
Copyright 2024 KCBD. All rights reserved.