The Pride of Pampa Band competed at the Regional Contest this past weekend.
“It’s the first round marching annually,” Band Director John Benton said. “At Regional, you’re not competing against other bands, you’re competing against the standard.”
Bands are given grades of 1 through 5, with “1” being superior (the best) and “five” being the worst. The Pride of Pampa Marching Band received a “1,” good enough to advance to Area.
“If you get a Superior Division from the judges at Regional, you can advance to Area,” Benton said. “Area is going to be held on Oct. 30.”
Pampa will be competing against roughly 17 other 4A schools from the West Texas region at Shotwell Stadium in Abilene.
At the Area Contest, there will be five judges, three judging music and two judging visuals. At Regional they only have three judging both categories.
The Top 3 bands will advance to State.
The Pride of Pampa Band’s program this year is called, “From Darkness to Light.”
“I left that open-ended intentionally because it can mean a lot of things,” Benton said. “It can mean from ignorance to intelligence. The past year and a half has been kind of difficult for everyone so we are hopefully emerging (into light) out of it; dealing with Covid and all of the cultural turmoil we have had.”
The 123 students in marching band started putting together the music at the end of the previous school year, but began the drill on Aug. 1.
“This has been a very good year for us overall,” Benton said. “We are hoping for the best.”
The Pampa News congratulates the Pride of Pampa Band for their recent accolades and wish them luck at Area.
