Roseville Results

With tonight’s parade, we close the competitive season for the 30th Edition of “The HERD”.  It was a wonderful season of steady and continuous growth.  The effort displayed by the band members this year was truly extraodinary and manifested itself in great performances that kept getting better and better.  These two last parades were exceptional.  Tonight, the band placed 3rd in Class AAA and 5th Overall with 4th place finishes in both Music and Marching.  This was against one of the 3 or 4 toughest lineups of the entire Minnesota parade season.

Class A

85.7 Litchfield

73.2 Lake City

70.9 Richfield

Class AA

87.1 Waconia

74.8 Bemidji

72.1 Alexandria

71.0 STMA

Class AAA

88.6 728 Cadets (Elk River HS/Zimmerman HS/Rogers HS)-Best Music, Drumline, Color Guard, General Effect, and Marching

83.6 Mankato Lancers (Mankato All City)-Best Wind Section and Drum Majors

80.3 Buffalo

79.9 Champlin Park

76.9 The Patriots (St. Anthony Village HS/Spring Lake Pk HS)

69.4 Solar Sound (St. Cloud All City)

Congratulations to the 728 Cadets on their undefeated season.  That is a fantastic accomplishement and doesn’t happen very often.

The winner of the Golden Dinkle tonight was Brandon Otten, of the Color Guard.  Congratulations Brandon.

Take a few days off.  Enjoy the summer.  We’ll see you next Monday for our Pre-Trip Rehearsal.

 

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Lake City

Hello Friends,

It has been eight years since we’ve visited Lake City for the Water Ski Days Parade and  I think we may be going back soon.  It was a wonderful day.  Parade volunteers and audiences were incredibly appreciative of our presence.  And, thanks to Mr. Peter Guenther’s great idea, we had the opportunity to share our music with the bands from Bemidji and Owatonna in the line up area.  In my 36 years as a marching band director and judge, I have never seen bands take time out of there warmup period to perform for each other.  It was a great illustration of the close community of the marching arts.  It put the focus on sharing and performing, rather than competing.  I think this will happen more frequently in the future.  At least I hope so.

As for the parade itself, I think it was your finest of the year and resulted in your first score in the 80’s.  All six peformances were awesome and left me in awe. I smiled for the entire parade route.

Congratulations to Serena Armstrong of the Clarinet Section for earning this afternoon’s “Golden Dinkle Award”.

Here are the results:

80.6 Buffalo-Best Winds, Best Drum Majors, Best General Effect, Best Marching

80.1 Owatonna-Best Drumline, Best Colorguard, Best Music

76.2 Bemidji

Report time is 2:00 for tomorrow’s Roseville Parade.  We will see Litchfield, Lake City, Richfield, Alexandria, Bemidji, Waconia, STMA, Patiots, 728 Cadets, Champlin Park, and St. Cloud Solar Sound.

 

Brooklyn Center and Sauk Rapids

The band has been  busy, with three parades in three days.  Thursday night saw the band perform well in a non judged event.  It was a fun night with favorable weather.  The audience was small but appreciative.  I was especially impressed by the way the performances improved throughout the parade.  Congratulations to winner of “The Golden Dinkle,” Serena Tupper from the trumpet section.

Friday, the band travelled to Sauk Rapids for the Rapids City Days Parade.  As usual, it was a well attended event with many fine bands.  This parade route often results in some of the highest scores of the summer, but this year the scores were unusually low, with no bands scoring in the 80’s.

Middle School

56.6 Milaca Middle School

56.2 Sartell Junior High

Class A

76.0 KMS

74.9 Winona Cotter

66.3 Foley

60.5 Royalton

Class AA

77.2 Alexandria

74.3 Sartell

64.0 Hutchinson

Class AA

79.7 Owatonna

77.5 Buffalo

69.9 St. Cloud All City (Solar Sound)

Congratulations to Owatonna High School for their outstanding performance.  We will see them again on Sunday and are planning to do stand-still performances for each other in the lineup area.

Winner of “The Golden Dinkle” at Sauk Rapids was Cassie McNitt from the Honor Guard.

Rehearsal on Sunday starts at 8 AM…Call each other and make sure we have everybody reporting on time.  Enjoy the day off tomorrow!

Foley Parade

Hello Friends,

It was a fantastic night for a parade.  The weather was beautiful all day.  The band worked really hard both at school and in the lineup area and it paid off.  “The HERD” was in the mix with some really fine bands tonight.  Congratulations to “The Storm” from Sauk Rapids-Rice on their Grand Championship award, and to all the bands that “stepped into the arena.”

Class A

71.7 Lake City

62.8 Albany

58.0 Royalton

Class AA

79.9 Sauk Rapids-Rice: Grand Champion, Best Music, Best Percussion and Best Colorguard

78.9 Milaca

73.9 Sartell

72.5 St. Francis

Class AAA

79.2 Mankato: Best General Effect

78.5 Buffal0: Best Marching

73.3 Maple Grove

69.7 Solar Sound (St. Cloud)

Congratulations to flutist Lydia Berg, winner of “The Golden Dinkle” for outstanding visual performance.

 

Buffalo Days Parade

Hello Friends,

It was a fantastic week with constant growth from Monday all the way through to our last performance at the end of the parade on Saturday.  I was especially pleased with the level of tenacity displayed by all of the rookies.  We can only be as good as the quality of our weakest performer.  This means we can have no weak performers and we are well on the way to this goal.

Friday night’s performance at the Parent Preview was really fun.  I always enjoy that moment when we first get to see the band in full uniform.  Everything looks and sounds better.  Congratulations to Matt Fenton of the Mellophone Section for earning “The Golden Dinkle Award” signifying an Outstanding Visual Performance.

On Saturday, the weather threw us a curveball. Between the rain, wind, and difficulty getting into our warmup location, we had a very condensed warmup time in the lineup area.  Despite all the barriers to excellence, you stepped up and put on a terrific show for your hometown crowd.  I was very proud of you.  Congratulations to “Golden Dinkle” winner Grayson Wubben, of the Tenor Drum Section.

The judging critiques have given us some really good learning targets for our next couple rehearsals and we know what to do to get to the next level.

Here are the results from Saturday.

Class A

1st 74.4 KMS

2nd 73.2 Benson

3rd 71.0 Sartell/St. Stephens

4th 61.2 Maple Lake

Class AA

1st 74.6 The Patriots of St. Anthony Village and Spring Lk. Park HS (Best Winds and Best Drum Majors)

2nd 71.6 St. Francis (Best Drumline)

3rd 66.1 St. Michael-Albertville

Grand Champion 75.3 Alexandria (Best Colorguard)

“The HERD” in exhibition received a 74.0.  We were ranked near the top in every caption and sub-caption except marching, in which we were ranked 6th.  This will be the focus of the wind section on Monday night and Wednesday afternoon.

Please keep in mind that this was our first performance and most of these bands had already marched between 3 and 6 times.  We are just getting started and have much room for growth.  Also, as the first band into the judging area, we are likely to get a lower score than if we were one of the following band.

Roseville Parade Results

It was an exciting night, with many of the best bands in the state going head to head to close out the competitive summer season in Minnesota.  You performance earned you another high score and ran your string of scores in the 80’s to 5 consecutive parades.  This will be a hard standard to live up to for future bands.  There continue to be only 4 bands in the state that perform at a higher level than you: Litchfield, 728 Cadets, Waconia and Mankato Lancers.  We saw Henry Sibley twice and we each outscored the other once.  I was proud to be your director this season and will miss you over the next 5 weeks.  Enjoy your July.  We will see you again on August 6.

Congratulations to Jack Soden, winner of “The Golden Dinkle Award” for tonight’s parade.

Here are tonight’s results.

89.9 Litchfield, Grand Champion, 1st in Class A, Best Marching, Best General Effect

89.5 728 Cadets, 1st in Class AAA, Best Drumline, Best Colorguard

88.2 Waconia, 2nd in Class AAA, Best Winds, Best Music

82.4 Henry Sibley, 1st in Class AA

82.3 “The HERD”, 3rd in Class AAA, 4th in Music, 4th in Marching, 6th in General Effect, 6th in Drumline, 8th in Colorguard

81.2 Alexandria, 2nd in Class AA

78.7 Patriots, 4th in Class AAA

75.5 Champlin Park, 3rd in Class AA

73.6 St. Michael-Albertville, 4th in Class AA

71.8 Lake City, 2nd in Class A

68.8 Blaine, 5th in Class AAA

68.7 Richfield, 3rd in Class A

St. Cloud Parade Results

I really cannot believe the way you continue improving.  Five parades and five successively improved performances.  I am proud to be part of this organization.  Your level of caring about excellence is truly humbling.  Going into today’s parade it was entirely conceivable  that we could get 5th in our class and 9th overall.  The best finish we could reasonably hope for was 2nd in our class and 3rd overall…and that’s what we earned. Your score of 83.7 is both our highest score and our highest place finish at the St. Cloud Parade.  We have yet to see either the 728 Cadets or Waconia (we’ll seem both of them on Monday), but based on the results that I’ve seen posted about other parades around the state, it looks like they are again in the top echelon of bands along with Litchfield and Mankato.  You’re just behind that group.  What a fantastic season for fantastic marching musicians and performers.

Congratulations to today’s most outstanding visual performer, Emma Henne, of the drumline.  She wins “The Golden Dinkle Award” for the day.

Here are today’s results.

1. 85.4 Litchfield, Grand Champion, 1st in Class A, Best Music Execution, Best Marching Execution, Best Music General Effect, Best Visual General Effect, Best Drumline
2. 84.5 Mankato Lancers, 1st in Class AA
3. 83.7 “The HERD”, 2nd in Class AA, 2nd in Music Execution, 5th in Marching Execution, 3rd in Music General Effect, 4th in Visual General Effect, 3rd in Drumline, 4th in Colorguard
4. 81.9 Henry Sibley, 2nd in Class A, Best Colorguard
5. 81.8 Champlin Park, 3rd in Class AA
6. 81.5 Milaca, 3rd in Class A
7. 81.45 Owatonna, 4th in Class AA
8. 80.1 Sauk Rapids-Rice, 5th in Class AA
9. 75.6 Sartell
10. 75.4 St. Michael-Albertville
11. 67.1 Foley

See you all for a 2:00 meet time on Monday.

 A

    85.4  Litchfield (Grand Champion & Drumline)

    81.9  Henry Sibley (Color Guard)

    81.5  Milaca

    75.6  Sartell

    67.1  Foley

 

    AA

    84.5  Mankato 77 Lancers (Color Guard)

    83.7  Buffalo

    81.8  Champlin Park

    81.45 Owatonna

    80.1  Sauk Rapids-Rice (Percussion)

    75.4  St. Michael-Albertville