WV (WOAY)- Multiple bands from our viewing area competed in the Greenbrier East Spartan Classic and the Woodrow Wilson Soaring Sounds competitions. These competitions are two of the many invitationals in the Governor’s Cup marching band series.
We had nine high school bands from our area competing in the Spartan Classic and 8 bands in Soaring Sounds. James Monroe competed in Spartan Classic and then Liberty competed in Soaring Sounds. Shady Spring, Pikeview, Princeton, Bluefield, Summers County Independence, and Greenbrier West went back-to-back and competed in both. Woodrow Wilson and performed/competed in both as well.
There was a variety of shows and music that these bands performed. The bands were in different classes ranging from D to A. Classes are divided by the number of students in each band. Then a and b class bands are sectioned into division 1 and c and d bands are in division 2.
A judge at a previous Govenor’s Cup competition spoke with me about how judges score the bands.
“There are different captions that are evaluated with performance. The band as a whole, we have our music for visual work and our general effect, and then we combine those scores that makes the bands score,” explain Mark Hopkins, judge and former band teacher. “Then you have the individual sections, the major role guard, the drum major and the percussion section, and they have different captions as well.”
Now that we understand how bands are scored. Let’s see how our schools did in these competitions.
To explain awards, in each image you’ll see there’ll be letters in parentheses after each score. SC will stand for Spartan Classic and SS will stand for Soaring Sounds.
Now that we’ve addressed that, we’ll start with our Class D schools.
Awards For Liberty High School (Class D):
Drum Major: 2nd (SS)
Awards For Independence High School (Class D):
Drum Major: 1st (Sc), 3rd (SS)
Awards For Greenbrier West High School (Class D):
Percussion: 3rd (SS)
Band: 2nd (SC), 3rd (SS)
Awards For Summers County High School (Class D):
Auxiliary: 1st (SS)
Percussion: 1st (SC), 2nd (SS)
Band: 3rd (SC), 2nd (SS)
Now before we move on to our Class C schools and their scores, let’s go into why band competitions are so important for these students. Woodrow Wilson’s band director explains how it’s both educational and bringing the community together.
“I think it’s very important. The kids love them [band competitions]. It’s a great drive for them. Competition sometimes is the best teacher,” said Marshall Rickman, Woodrow Wilson’s band director. “But other than that, it also gives a lot of the students a chance to kind of mingle and interact with a bunch of students from other bands and kind of network out there and grow their social circle.”
Awards For Shady Spring High School (Class C):
Auxiliary: 3rd (SS)
Drum Major: 2nd (SS)
Band: 2nd (SC), 3rd (SS)
Division II 2nd Runner-Up (SS)
2nd Runner-Up in Overall Governor’s Cup (SC)
4th Runner-Up in Overall Governor’s Cup (SS)
Awards For Bluefield High School (Class C):
Percussion: 1st (SS)
Drum Major: 1st (SC), 1st (SS)
Band: 3rd (SC), 2nd (SS)
Division II 1st Runner-Up (SS)
4th Runner-Up in Overall Governor’s Cup (SS)
3rd Runner Up in Overall Governor’s Cup (SC)
Awards For Pikeview High School (Class C):
Auxiliary: 1st (SC), 1st (SS)
Percussion: 3rd (SS)
Drum Major: 3rd (SS)
Band: 1st (SC), 1st (SS)
1st Place Soloist On Flute (SC)
Overall Dance Team (SS)
Class C Champion (SC), (SS)
Division II Grand Champion (SS)
Grand Champion Overall Governor’s Cup (SS)
1st Runner-Up in Overall Governor’s Cup (SC)
Awards For Woodrow Wilson High School (Class B):
Band: 2nd (SC)
2nd Place Overall Majorettes (SC)
1st Place Twirler (SC)
3rd Runner-Up Overall Governor’s Cup (SC)
Awards For Princeton High School (Class B)”
Auxiliary: 1st (SC), 1st (SS)
Percussion: 1st (SC), 1st (SS)
Drum Major: 1st (SC), 1st (SS)
Band: 1st (SC), 1st (SS)
1st Place Soloist on Trumpet (SC), (SS)
Class B Champion (SC), (SS)
Division I First Runner-Up (SS)
1st Runner-Up Overall Governor’s Cup (SS)
2nd Runner-Up in Overall Governor’s Cup (SC)
Now we have seen our bands individually in their respective classes, divisions, and various overall awards. You may be asking, how did the Govenor’s Cup Marching Band series start? Well, the Cabinet Secretary of the Department of Arts, Culture and History explains.
“There’s really a nice history to this. We do the ‘Save the Music’ grant in West Virginia; we’re the only state that it’s the entire state. ‘Save the Music’ has put 156 sets of instruments in middle schools. That’s like 38 instruments in each school about $40,000. That’s $6,240,000 worth of free instruments in the middle schools in West Virginia, we have about 24 more to fund. ” explained Randall Reid-Smith, Cabinet Secretary of the Department of Arts, Culture and History. “And so from that, we’ve done that [Save the Music] for 16 years, but we didn’t have funding for high schools. So we started the Governor’s Cup and we give away probably about $80,000 a year in funding for high school band so they can help high school kids some wonderful instruments to help with any of their expenses. ”
If you’re a band director in our viewing area and wish to share scores and upcoming competitions that your band is doing, please email me at the email address below.
sdavanzo@woay.com
As the band season goes on, I will continue to cover it and highlight our high school band members and their accomplishments.
