The Saturday, Nov 8th Auburn Veteran's Day Marching Band Festival is two events:

• Veteran's Day Parade in the morning (parade starts at 11 am)
  
• Marching band competitions in the afternoon and evening (1 pm to 10 pm)
  

The Auburn Veteran's Day Parade is the largest such parade west of the Mississippi River featuring over 200 units and about 25 marching bands. The parade runs East to West along Main Street towards B St NW.

The band competition is held in nearby Memorial Stadium and will feature over 30 high school marching bands. Because of the morning parade, this event does not have separate preliminary and final competition phases. Bands perform their field show just once.

• City of Auburn Information About the Parade
  
• WVHS Eagles are scheduled to enter the parade at 11:45 am.
  
• WVHS Eagles Marching Band performs in Memorial Stadium at 5 pm (be there at least 15 minutes before)
  
• Detailed schedule for the West Valley HS Band (MS Word .doc file)
  
• National Weather Service weather forecast
• Cascade pass conditions
  
• Current Snoqualmie Pass conditions - WSDOT is using helicopters for some construction work on I-90 near Lake Keechelus and there may be some traffic delays
• Updates and possibly video or photos will be provided here during the event.
  

Parade and Memorial Stadium Location
The parade runs along Main St. The marching band festival is held in Memorial Stadium, which is in the area identified as "City Park" at 4th and E St. Auburn High School is the big open space between 4th and Main St across from the "City Park".


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1 – This Friday is our last home football game … we will be performing at halftime. This is a REQUIRED performance!!!

2 – Our delay in getting back to Spokane on Sunday was due to vandalism to the car of one of our Band parents.

3 – PROCEDURE FOR CHANGES IN THE BAND REHEARSAL SCHEDULE
From now on, any schedule changes will be posted on the Band website and sent via text messages from one of our Drum Majors. The message will always begin with the phrase, “This message is from Mr. Loucks.” Please understand that things do happen and sometimes changes have to be made at the last minute. Everything I do is in the best interest of the students. Thank you for understanding.

Yesterday’s morning's class meeting was called to discuss some “family” issues within our Band student family. I asked ALL students to not discuss any of it with anyone. Thank you for respecting my wishes. See you Friday night.

JUST A REMINDER
It is the responsibility of each Band student to make up any work missed for Marching Band. We will be leaving at 12:00 PM on Friday, November 7, for Auburn, and it is imperative that each student have all of their assignments turned in before we leave. Thank you assisting me with this.

Jim Loucks

There were some delays getting underway this morning from Everett - and Jim Loucks thinks the band will be back at the high school by 4 pm Sunday.

West Valley HS Eagle Marching Band wins caption awards for:

• Best Music
  
• Best Percussion
  
• Overall score of 69.6 (everyone's scores are lower at this event due to more aggressive judging)
  
• 2nd place in the AA Division (Black Hills HS took 1st by about +1 point).
  
• West Valley advances to Finals competition this evening!

UPDATE: WV is in 8th place overall in PRELIMINARY COMPETITION - only a year or two ago did WV even make the top 12 Finals. This is a great achievement. Congratulations to the Students, Staff and Band Director.

UPDATE SUNDAY: In Finals competition, WV's score increased by +3 points but its position fell to 10th place in FINALS COMPETITION.

The Puget Sound Festival of Bands competition will be held in Everett on October 25th at the Everett Memorial Stadium. More details will be posted here in the next few days. This is a large and fun event.

Participating bands: TBD (typically 26 to 30 bands)
West Valley: WVHS performs at 1:45 pm.
Detailed Schedule: 2008PSFOBSCHEDULE.DOC (MS Word document)
Results: Scores and awards will be posted on this web site when available. Note - I will not be in attendance at Everett. If you could volunteer to telephone me with score updates, or if you could take video (preferably with a tripod) that I could put here later, that would be appreciated. Please drop a note to edward.mitchell "at" gmail.com and I'll send you contact information. Thank you.
Everett Weather: National Weather Service page
Cascade Pass Conditions: All Washington Mountain Pass current conditions or Snoqualmie Pass.
Google map: Link.

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MARCHING BAND REHEARSAL SCHEDULE CHANGE
Monday, October 20 – canceled
Tuesday, October 21 – rescheduled (5:00 – 7:30 PM)

Reason: Director felt it would be in the best interest of the students to give them an
extra day of rest before another long trip to Everett this weekend.

Prelim score 75.85 In finals at 6:30. Due to my car being broken in to & stuff stolen, no more updates tonight-sorry

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Sunday update: Final results (Note that the order of final results are not sorted by final score)

For the event, WV took 1st in AA and won all AA caption awards.

Here's the final results from the Harvest Festival of Bands:

WVHS - 1st Place (AA)
WVHS - Best Brass and Woodwinds (AA)
- Best Percussion and Pit (AA)
- Best Color Guard (AA)
- Best Marching (AA)
- Best General Effect (AA)
- Best Drum Majors (AA)
WVHS - 10th Place Overall (Prelims)
WVHS - 9th Place Overall (Finals)

WV had a superb performance

Information for those wishing to attend the Harvest Marching Band Festival in Yakima, on Saturday, October 18th.

The Zaepfel Stadium is legendary for cold winds in the evening - bring more warm clothing than you'll think you'll need - brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Web site info: HarvestBands.org (make sure your computer volume is up)
Participating bands: Schedule (WV-Spokane at 11:30 am, EV at 1:15, U-High at 3:45)
ADVANCE TICKET SALES: there are none.
DETAILED SCHEDULE: will be sent home on Thursday (electronic copy here in MS Word format).
Results: Scores and awards will be posted on this web site when available.
Yakima Weather: National Weather Service page
Google map: Link. Take I-90 west to Ellensburg, then south on I-82 to Yakima, then west for a short distance on SR 12, taking the 40th Ave exit and driving south for a few miles to the stadium at the corner of 40th and Tieton Drive.
Return trip: Finals competition is in the evening, followed by the closing ceremony "retreat" finishing up after 10 to 10:30 pm. Drive time to Spokane is up to about 3 hrs 30 mins. For safety reasons so that drivers have adequate sleep, the band will sleep overnight in Yakima; many parents may wish to stay in the area as well otherwise you might not be back to Spokane until 2 to 3 am.


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BAND INSTRUMENTS NEEDED The West Valley School District Beginning Band Program is bursting at the seams with almost 70 students enrolled AND we need your help! 30-40 additional students want to join the 5th grade Band, but cannot afford an instrument. If you have an instrument in good playing condition and would like to donate it to our Band Program, please email either Jim Loucks (jim.loucks@wvsd.com) or Kyle Bosch (kyle.bosch "at" wvsd.com). Also, if you cannot donate a Band instrument, but would still like to help ... we can use new copies of the method book, "Essential Elements 2000." Books for all instruments are needed and may be purchased through your local Band instrument dealer, sheet music store, or at many online sites. Please contact us for more information. Your donation will provide these young, aspiring Band musicians with the opportunity of a lifetime. Thank you. Jim Loucks, Band Director Kyle Bosch, Band Director

Calvacade of Bands 2008 Preliminary Competition Selected Videos

When viewing the videos, please be aware that high winds significantly altered the acoustics of the stadium causing unusual pitch and phase shifts - strict interpretation of the musical sounds in these videos should be done with an awareness of the unfortunate acoustical situation!

West Valley-Spokane in Preliminary competition. A link to a pseudo-High Definition (1280 x 720) version of this is below.

• Link to West Valley-Spokane Finals Competition Video
  
• Link to West Valley-Prelims-pseudo HDTV version
  
• Link to Cheney High School-Preliminary
  
• Mt Spokane High School-Final
  
• Cascade High School - very entertaining and well done
• Hanford High School - Malaguena - great trumpets at +6 mins 30 secs
  
• Depending on time, more may be coming ... 6 of the 12 finalists were from the Spokane area.
  

In finals competition WV takes 7th (corrected) 8th place overall against all bands in all divisions! Great job!

WV-SPOKANE advances to finals at 7:30. Is in 8th place overall.

Preliminary Competition Scores

25 high school bands performed (two in exposition performances).

Top 12 from Preliminary Competition
1. Central Valley 78.285 AAA-Open
2. Mead 78.215 AAA-Open
3. Cascade 76.6 AAA-Open
4. Mt Spokane 73.8 AAA-Large
5. Cheney 70.9 AA
6. Wenatchee 70.4 AAA-Large
7. West Valley 68 AA
8. University 67.9 AAA-Small
9. Central Kitsap 65.9 AAA-Small
10. Capitol 65.7 AAA-Small
11. Eisenhower 63 AAA-Large
12. Clarkston 57.8 AA
* The prelim list may not be 100% accurate.

Final Competition Scores
1. Central Valley 79.3 *** SWEEPSTAKES winner
2. Mead 78.6
3. Cascade 76.9
4. Mt Spokane 74.4
5. Wenatachee 73.1
6. Cheney 70.9
7. West Valley 70.4 - West Valley - Yakima
8. West Valley 68.3 - West Valley - Spokane
9. Hanford 67.3
10. Central Kitsap 66.9
11. University 66.49
12. Capitol 64.4

Scores WV best marching AA, best percussion AA, tie for best general effect, 2nd place AA 68 score. 1st went to Cheney HS.

Preliminary scores will be announced after 5 pm and will be updated here. Due to limited Internet access video will be online Sunday

Students from other bands near our seats said after the WV Performance: THAT WAS AWESOME!

WV Takes the field at Pasco

ALUMNI BAND
We need your help! On Friday, October 17, the West Valley High School Marching Band will be in Yakima preparing to compete in the 2008 Harvest Festival of Bands. The "Eagle" football team has a home game that evening. Since we won't be at the game, I would like to invite all past Band members (young and not so young) to join the Centennial Middle School Band in performing at this game. You will play some of the classic pep band tunes that you played while at WVHS and it should be a lot of fun! Here's the schedule:

6:00 PM - Rehearse in the new Band Room (north entrance on Vista)
6:30 PM - Set up in the stands (north end of stadium)
6:50 PM - Play pre-game music
9:15 PM - Game ends

Here's what I need ... send me an email (jim.loucks "at" wvsd.com) so I know that you'll be here and what instrument you'll play. Subject line in your email: ALUMNI BAND. I'll email more information prior to the 17th. Please let everyone know about the Alumni Band performance and have them email me. Thanks.

We'll plan another performance at one of the basketball games this winter and make this an annual event. And, maybe we'll begin a "Second Time Around" Marching Band for all of you still having withdrawal pains. Should be interesting!!!

So, get out those horns and get the chops in shape. Take care.