Competition Prep Work

    Time has quickly past since the first football game. The football team has definitely come to win this season, our record last year was a travesty. As the band continues to improve every week we were nowhere  near being ready to participate in our first competition. October was a month full of band competitions and parades and this crazy schedule was about to be unleashed upon us. The first band competition of the year was Lonesome Pine in Wise, Virginia. Competitions are very fun and stress free for band members but this is not the case for visuals. Instrumentalist are only required to have all their hair up, no makeup on, and there instruments ready to go. Now with flag girls this is not the case. 
     The Lonesome Pine Band festival was one of the largest band competitions Lee High attends. Each band is divided up into a class according to size, so this placed our band in the last competing class. Since we were not scheduled to perform until later in the afternoon,  Mr. Harding scheduled an early morning rehearsal. I was very nervous but excited to compete for the first time as a flag girl. When we all arrived at the school everyone looked as though they had crawled out of bed, which was the case for me. The band had only successfully set the first two songs and as we began to practice,  the second song began to fall apart. The routine was very difficult because of the slow tempo. Counting is essential in order to stay together in a routine and it became very obvious that no one was counting. As Cheryl began to panic,  so did everyone else.  The team only consisted of two returning members so for the others this was a stressful moment. After we all took a break and relaxed for a moment things started to take shape. 
   The morning practice only lasted for two hours and after that was over we were immediately sent to the buses to depart for lunch. The bus ride was very peaceful which was good for relaxation from the stress we had encountered in the morning  practice. As soon as everyone was finished eating we loaded up and departed for Wise- Central High school. Little did I know that the craziness that I had experienced in the morning practice would be incomparable to the stress of getting 15 girls ready in under two hours on a bus full of other band members.