The WVHS Marching Band is 1 of just 10 bands selected by nationwide audition to march in the April 2006 National Cherry Blossom Festival Parade in Washington, D.C. (plus two additional bands selected from D.C. area schools.)

We need to raise a total of $120,000 so that all students can participate. If you can help us with fundraising or would like to make a donation, please send an email to bandboosters "at" wvbands.org, mail a check to:

WVHS Band Boosters
P O Box 11341
Spokane, WA 99211

Or, make a donation at any branch of Farmer's and Merchant's Bank in Spokane and mention "WVHS Band Washington to Washington Trip Fund")

We are developing a corporate and individual sponsorship program to provide a great way for contributing to the high school band and music programs.

We will have our formal sponsorship program and online donation program set up soon! Until then, please send us an email at bandboosters "at" wvbands.org if you have any questions..

Thank you!

The top three search systems (Google, Search.msn.com and Yahoo) have been notified of the new web site. It takes several weeks before their automated search systems will visit the web site and add it to their collection.

If you have a web site or an online weblog, please add a link to http://wvbands.org at your web site.

Your link will help to get our site indexed more quickly, and will likely place wvbands.org higher in the web search results.

Update: This web site is now searchable in Google, search.msn and AOLSearch. Still not available in Yahoo.

Torrington High School, Connecticut, has also been selected to march in the Washington DC Cherry Blossom parade. Check out their web site, fundraising and sponsorships!


The WVHS Eagle Marching Band will be there too - here shown in the May 2005 Lilac Festival and Armed Forces Day Torchlight Parade. Imagine yourself in the following photo - because next April this will be a photo of the Eagle Marching Band! The parade will start off down Constitution Avenue in the District of Columbia's largest annual spectator event on Saturday, April 8, 2006.



Image courtesy National Cherry Blossom Festival.

West Valley was placed in the A division, rather than AA division, due to the organizer's using last year's class division rather than this years.

WV took Best Music and Best Percussion in the A division.

The Marching Band will perform at the ground breaking ceremony for the new construction, at 2 pm, at WVHS. We hope the media will be out in force for this event and provide some coverage.

Brief info on upcoming fundraisers - this is not the definitive source - yet - for all the details.

Coming Soon
WVHS Eagle Marching Band wrist bands to be offered for sale.

Oct 25th - Game night - 7pm to 9pm. Every band student will also receive a unique "promotions code" for use at the Always Great Games web site for discounts and extra earnings opportunities.

Oct 28th/29th - Crafts Fair on the 29th, setup on the 28th.

Nov 10th - Mall "Festival of Giving" tickets, earn $5 for each sold, plus more earning opportunities at the mall. Deep discount shopping opportunity just in time for Christmas. 7-10 pm, Nov 1th. Ticket sales start now. Volunteers needed 6 pm to 10 pm.

Dec 9th - Christmas dance at the Mirabeau Sr Center for hundreds of local senior citizens. Jazz Band will perform. Other band students will assist with Chum Chum Games and donations.

Late Dec - Christmas Tree recycling

Raffles
1. GU basketball game (4 tickets), dinner and hotel raffle, $50 per ticket (Adults only sales). $10,000 potential.
2. Concert at Arena ticket sales. $10,000 potential.

Mar 11th - Auction

More!
We have several more great fundraising ideas under investigation including:

• Future opportunities to donate online, through this web site, to the band.
  
• We are working to develop a sponsorship program, open to individuals and businesses.
  
• We are developing a 60 to 90 second video for distribution on DVD to potential corporate sponsors
  
• We intend to provide sponsorship recognition through this web site.
  
• In the future, we may provide sales of band logo'd t-shirts, sweatshirts, hats, and so on, through this website.
  
• And there are more ideas besides these!
  

AFTER the Everett trip, please remove all personal items (that includes personal clothing) from your uniform bag. Take those items home, get any stinky clothing washed, and keep in a safe place until spring time!

will be bandboosters "at" wvbands.org

Replace "at" with the @ symbol; I leave the @ out from online addresses to avoid automated junk email systems harvesting this address.

Currently, email to this account forwards to Ed Mitchell. However, it can be set to forward to any number of people simultaneously. If you would like to receive copies of incoming email to the Bandboosters, please send your email address to Ed at edward "at" coldstreams.com.

Thank you,

Ed

Click on any photo for full size picture.

In the AA division, the scores were extremely close:

1st place - 67.70 points
2nd place - 67.62 points
3rd place - West Valley with 67.55 points
4th place - unknown
5th place - unknown

West Valley's score was significantly higher than its score at the Pacific NW Band Championships in Spokane and the Cavalcade of Bands in Kennewick.

Update: WV received awards for:

• Best Marching-Individual
  
• Best Drum Majors

Complete Harvest Festival round up is available here.

All the old web addresses still work - but now, drum line do a drum roll please?

Announcinghttp://wvbands.orgas the all purpose, easy to remember web site address for the WVHS Bands web site.

(I have donated a two year registration of the web URL http://wvbands.org and set this up today. It is likely I will extend this to a full six years...Ed Mitchell)

The Tales from Band Camp comic is now linked at the left of this weblog:

(Click on comic strip for full size - used with permission of Tales From Band Camp.)

All band parents, varsity cheerleader parents, and students, are invited to attend a very important Band Boosters meeting on Tuesday evening, October 18th, at 7 pm at the WVHS band room. The primary topic of discussion will be trip fundraising for the D.C. trip.

The following is an online video of the WVHS Marching Band fall field show performance taken at Joe Albi Stadium on Oct 8th.

The video requires Real Player 10, and at least a 256 kbps or faster (300 kbps or faster recommended) Internet connection typical of most DSL and cable modem connections, and a 1 Ghz computer processor speed (or faster) recommended.

Video taken offline on October 30 - thanks for watching!

Due to disk storage and network limits, this video will eventually be removed. (Video provided by Edward Mitchell.)

Click on any photo for a full size image (photos are from the video):

Saturday, October 15 - Yakima Harvest Marching Band Competition

From the Yakima Herald Republic newspaper:

"5TH ANNUAL HARVEST MARCHING BAND FESTIVAL — Oct. 15, 11-a.m.-5 p.m. preliminary competition. 5:15 p.m., finalists announced. 6:30-9 p.m. final competition. Zaepfel Stadium, 40th Avenue and Tieton Drive. Twenty-two high school marching bands will compete in a 10-minute show, including wind, percussion musicians, flag and dance teams and rifle squads. Host bands Davis and Eisenhower High Schools will perform at 5:30 and 5:45 p.m. Tickets are $7 for adults, $4 for students and seniors. For more information call, 454-3134 or 969-0588."

Map of Tieton and 40th
Yakima, WA 98902


West Valley-Spokane students will sleep overnight at - surprise! - West Valley High School-Yakima. West Valley-Yakima is located at:



Map of 9206 Zier Rd
Yakima, WA 98908-9243

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Saturday, October 22 - Puget Sound Festival of Bands

(Link to map showing the location of the Everett Memorial Arena where the event will be held.)

Everett Memorial Stadium
3900 Broadway
Everett, WA 98201

About half of the West Valley High School marching band appeared on screen as the backdrop to the Friday night high school sports round up on KHQ-6 TV news on Friday evening. KHQ does a 15 minute long high school sports recap at 11:15 pm, during the last half of their late night news.

The band performed at Joe Albi Stadium, both as a backdrop and with lots of close up shots of the group.

The KHQ sports team also made an on-air announcement about the band's trip to Washington DC in 2006 and announced an opportunity for donations to be made through any F&M Bank branch.

Some photos of the Cavalcade of Bands competition at Kennewick High School.

Click on any photo for a larger version of the photo.