The marching band season has officially concluded, with their last competition on October 18th, 2025. They finished 4th at the Reeds Spring competition in their preliminary round. Finals got rained out so their preliminary competition rank was their finals rank.
Natalie Palomo, high school band director, said, “My favorite thing about the marching band is seeing us progress from band camp to mid-October, knowing where we started (just playing through our music in the band room) to where we ended (marching a full 8:30 show memorized).” She continued, “I love seeing my students get to step up as leaders throughout the band, seeing freshmen start to understand how marching band and high school band work, and watching the community we have begun to develop for the year!”
Starting the second day of school and ending on the 17th of September, the band practiced from 6:45 to 8:49 every morning school was in session. For their Missouri State University competition there was a large number of Fair Grove students including the football team, volleyball team, cross country team, and cheer squad. After the competition was over the groups had lunch, played games, and just hung out with the band.
Drum major Eli Sanders (12) said, “The season was different mainly in the second half of it. We usually have to consistently work on the same things but this year we were able to fix those things early on and work on really small things to elevate our show.”
He continued, “Some challenges we had to overcome were people not getting into our dance portion of the show. We were able to get everyone into the dance later in the year and make the dance look even better.”
According to Palomo the marching band has had a great year and have worked hard on the little things. The drum majors this year were Sanders, Giuliana Kandlbinder (12), and Timothy Barber (11). The leader of the drum line is Gavin Brock (12) and Waylon Wright (12). The band placed in every competition and was able to attend finals at the MSU competition.
