The WVHS Wind Ensemble performed at the 2009 EWMEA Concert Band Festival this morning at Ferris High School. Considering that we missed three rehearsals for the State Basketball Tournament and four rehearsals for the WASL, the overall results were OK. However, I'm very disappointed in the number of Band students who did not practice on their own at all during this time. Their lack of individual preparation cost those students who put in the extra effort ... we received two Excellent Ratings (II), with Superior Rating (I) being the best. With a little more effort from each student, we would have received two Superior Ratings.

Everything we do with the West Valley High School Band Program is to be at the highest level of excellence and nothing less is acceptable. So, there will much more personal accountability from each student for the rest of this school year. Thank you for your understanding and support.

Jim Loucks, Band Director

Jazz band gets ready to perform.









Visitors perusing the merchandise tables and bidding for items.

WVHS Band auction, band performances, pizza dinner five dollars, and great stuff to buy Sat. Right now 'til early evening.

WVHS Band auction in progress-come on by & buy!

Tuesday, March 24
Ferris High School (via busses)
Depart from WVHS - 6:45 AM
Perform at Ferris - 8:00 AM
Arrive at WVHS - 9:15 AM

Dress: Girls (Dress or dress pants and top)
Boys (Dress shirt and tie, slacks)

We're performing first in order to avoid missing much class time.

Jim Loucks, Band Director

WV Band expects to return about 10:30 pm to WVHS after dinner and drive time from Yakima.

WV Girls beat Prosser 63 to 49, taking 3rd place overall in the State Basketball Tournament! Until now, Prosser had generally been viewed as the #1 team in the state. At one point, the WV girls were ahead by 28 points.

WV Girls will play on Sat. at 3:30 pm for either 3rd or 6th place position in the tournament.

WV Girls 50, Hockinson Girls 46 - Final score reported by Tourney Town.com at 7:06 pm Thu at the State Basketball Tournament in Yakima, WA.

WV Girls will advance to play in the semi-finals on Fri at 4 pm. If they win on Fri, they then advance to championship game on Sat. If they lose on Fri, they play for 3rd or 6th place on Sat.

With the pep band away at the State Basketball tournament, you'll be happy to know that the WVHS Girl's Basketball "Lady Eagles" team has won their first game this afternoon.

Next game will be played Thursday at 5:30 pm.

Tournament brackets here.

• Mar 11-14: State Basketball tournament - Yakima
• Mar 16-19: WASL
• Mar 21: Fundraising auction
• Mar 24 or 25th: Band @ Ferris
• Mar 28 - Apr 5: Spring Break
• Apr 10: Wind Ensemble @ Pasco
• Apr 11: Jazz Band @ Pasco
• Apr 13-14: WASL
• Apr 20-21: WASL
• Apr 24: State ensemble students @ CWU, Ellensburg
• Apr 25: State solo students @ CWU, Ellensburg

Please join us for the West Valley Band Boosters 6th Annual Auction and Dinner.

This is an important fund raiser for the WVHS bands program featuring
"Pizza Dinner"
"Silent Auction"
"Live Auction"
and an opportunity to turn your Gold into Cash $$$.

Your support is greatly appreciated - please stop on by!

Saturday, March 21, 2009

4:30 pm - Doors open
5:30 pm - First tables close
5:30 - 7:00 pm - Dinner available (pizza!)
7:40 pm - Live Auction
8:30 pm - Check out

Where:
West Valley High School Commons
8301 E. Buckeye
Please use main entrance at the corner of Vista & Buckeye

For more information, please call 892-5377

Turn your gold into cash!
Local Washington company Precious & Rare, LLC will be at the auction from 4:30 – 7:30 pm to pay you CASH ON THE SPOT for gold, platinum, silver, coins, watches, diamonds, dental gold and more!

** Take advantage of record high gold prices **
** Experienced Jewelers **
** Immediate Service **
** CASH payouts **

Several new web site features have been added to the wvbands.org online empire to bring our web site up to "Web 2.0" and enter the world of social media for improved sharing of information.

Many of our readers are not able to access the wvbands.orgs (wvbands.blogspot.com) web site at schools or work due to filters that block access to all blogspot.com web sites - but you now have alternate ways to follow web site updates: No more excuses to say "I didn't know about that!"


Receive Web Site Updates Via Email or to your Cellular Phone
The option to receive wvbands.org web site updates via email is now live. Visit the link to add yourself to the web site updates email list (this list is separate from the Band Boosters and Student email distribution lists). You can also have web site updates sent to your cellular phone if you know the email address of your cell phone.


WVBands Facebook Group

• A Facebook group for the WVBands students, alumni, parents and staff is at: WVHS Bands Facebook group. Click on Join this Group at that page. Contains short updates whenever this web site, CMS, 5th Grade bands web sites, and the Director's Notes are updated.

WVBands MySpace Page

• Myspace.com/wvhsbands.
• Contains full updates from this web site.
  

"Mirror Image" Alternate Web Site Access - and for iPhone, iPod Touch and other devices
A "mirror" copy of the text on this web site is now available at an alternate web site address that should be reachable from within most schools and organizations that restrict access to web sites because wvbands is hosted on blogspot.com. (This is now live at wvbands.coldstreams.com)

When the mirror web site is visited using a mobile device - such as an iPhone or iPod Touch, it will appear specially formatted for the small screen of the mobile device.


Twitter
For those that use the Twitter message update system (and those who are not yet doing so!), all messages posted to any of the West Valley Bands web sites, including the Director's Notes, will result in a brief summary message posted to Twitter.

See twitter.com/wvbands (not much there yet!)

Twitter provides a short message update system - many people choose to receive their desired twitter updates as text messages on their cell phone. That's up to you, though!


Send Us Cell Phone Pictures (or other Pictures) of the Band
Use your cell phone (or computer) to email photos to bandboosters "at" wvbands.org. Good photos will be added to our photo gallery and if possible, posted here too.


Using Google Reader and Other News Reader Software
You can always read the wvbands.org site directly as you are now.

However, for those of you that may use a "news reader" such as Google Reader you can now easily subscribe to automatic updates by clicking the following logo:

If you do not know what this is about or do not care to know that's okay - but if interested, check out Google Reader or Bloglines. Many Internet browsers also provide a built in feature to automatically track web site updates and this also works with those browsers.

Enjoy these unusual musical performances :)

Professional musicians perform an orchestration entirely on instruments made out of parts from the Ford Focus:


Honda uses a human choir to create all of the sound effects for this enjoyable commercial: