Pea Ridge Band makes history

Photograph submitted The Pea Ridge Blackhawk Band performed at a Saturday morning meeting recently for Walmart associates. The band received a monetary gift from Walmart for performing a pep rally to start the meeting with guest host Quinn Grovey.

Photograph submitted The Pea Ridge Blackhawk Band performed at a Saturday morning meeting recently for Walmart associates. The band received a monetary gift from Walmart for performing a pep rally to start the meeting with guest host Quinn Grovey.

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

The High School Marching Band earned its first ever "Superior" rating in school history at the Region 6 Marching Assessment Tuesday, Oct. 21, at Rogers High School. The band participated in the annual Region Marching Assessment that all school bands in the state attend in their respective regions. This is one of two major events run by the Arkansas School Band and Orchestra Association (ASBOA), which is the state's governing organization for school instrumental music programs. A first division rating is the highest score that the three-person judging panel can award a band at Region Assessment. The band has never achieved this high honor according to David Dickey, retired teacher and current resident of Pea Ridge, who taught in the school's band program for 18 years from 1989-2007.

Monty Hill, who is in his first year at Pea Ridge, has had a long standing career of building superior band programs at Lake Hamilton, Greenwood and Mills University studies in Little Rock. Along with Middle School Band director Matt McCool, Hill has brought a winning way to the Pea Ridge Band in the last three months. The band began practicing July 21 and has been working on their competition show entitled "My Girl." The show includes the tunes "My Girl" by the Temptations from 1964, the 1975 hit "Love Will Keep Us Together" by Captain and Tennille, "Green Eyed Lady" by the psychedelic rock group Sugar Loaf from 1970 and "Valleri" by the Monkees from 1968. Several band students have featured solos during the show including: Garrett Lang, Brandon Plunkett, Kallie Koon, Devon Giertz, Kevin Small, Dominique Burwell, Hunter Chestnut, Hannah Hall and Lorrie Klein.

Student leadership has played a big part in the success of the band. Senior Christian Meader is the band's drum major, who leads and conducts the band on the field. Along with section leaders Brandon Plunkett, Kallie Koon, Alan Sicairos, Wyatt Garrett, color guard captain Hannah Hall and co-captain Lorrie Klein, the band has made great strides in the quality of their performances.

The High School Band has participated in several events and competitions in October. On Saturday, Oct. 11, the band performed at the Walmart Home Office in Bentonville at 7:30 a.m. for the morning meeting. The band received a monetary gift from Walmart for performing a pep rally to start the meeting with guest host Quinn Grovey. Later that day, the band hosted the first ever marching contest in Blackhawk Stadium sponsored by Arvest Bank of Pea Ridge and co-sponsored by Saied Music of Fayetteville. Despite the cold and the rain, six bands from the area competed against each other at the Blackhawk Marching Classic including: Cotter, Green Forest, Lincoln, Rogers Heritage, Muskogee, Okla., and East Newton, Mo. Those bands received both a division rating from the five judges as well as an overall score to crown a Grand Champion. Muskogee High School was named grand champion.

The bands also received caption awards for most outstanding music, soloist, drum line, color guard and drum major in their classes, which are categorized according to the size of each band. The Blackhawk Band performed an exhibition of "My Girl" culminating at the end of the day before the trophy awards ceremony. The visiting band directors, their students and the judges at the contest were very impressed with the high quality of the new indoor and stadium facilities at the school. The band hopes this will draw more participants for the contest next year as this will be an annual event.

On Tuesday, Oct. 14, the High School Band traveled to Elkins for a competition with several other bands including Huntsville, Gravette, Gentry, Prairie Grove, Harrison, Greenland, Shiloh and Farmington. The band received a first division rating of "Superior." Junior Hunter Chestnut was awarded the "Outstanding Soloist" of all the bands for his guitar solo during the band's closing tune "Valleri." The band placed second overall with a score of 279.5, just 1 point behind Harrison which scored a 280.5 out of 300 possible. This was quite an accomplishment for the band who has not scored this well at a marching competition since 1999.

The band competed at the War Eagle Classic Marching Competition held at Rogers-Heritage High School on Saturday, Oct. 18. The band placed second in their class, just a half point behind the first place band, and won five of the six caption awards in their class for best music, marching technique, color guard, drum major-Christian Meader, and soloist-Alan Sicairos. This was another very successful showing at a competition that featured 22 bands in five different class sizes. Fort Smith South Side, Springdale Har-Ber, Siloam Springs, Greenwood, Alma, Ozark, Rogers and Roland, Okla., were some of the bands that competed that day. The top 10 scoring bands marched a finals performance later that evening with Har-Ber being crowned the Grand Champion. Pea Ridge's music score was only 2 points behind champion Har-Ber. The Blackhawk Band has been scoring very high in the overall music and marching technique categories as well as outstanding soloists.

The band will travel to Little Rock after the Huntsville football game Oct. 31 for an overnight stay to compete at "The Championship at the Rock" on Saturday, Nov. 1. This will be the first time the Blackhawk Band has participated in this competition that will feature 32 bands from all over the state as well as three from the state of Texas. This is the largest marching competition in the state this year and will be the final competitive event for the Pea Ridge Band this season. Pea Ridge will compete with 12 other bands in their class with hopes of winning the class and qualifying to march in the finals competition later that evening.

After the "Championship at the Rock," the band will spend the rest of the semester preparing for the annual Veteran's Day Assembly to be held Nov. 11, the Pea Ridge Christmas Parade on Dec. 6 and the Winter Concert on Tuesday, Dec. 2. The winter concert will begin at 6:30 p.m. in the High School Gym featuring all 200 plus band students in the program, grades 6-12. After the winter break, the band will prepare for the 2nd Region Assessment of the year that is held in March for concert band with hopes of achieving another first division rating and the band's first ever "Sweepstakes" award for scoring a "Superior" at both the Marching and Concert Assessments for the school year.

Community on 10/29/2014