The 2017-2018 Marching Eagles are off to a great start to their season. This is the first year the band is under the direction of Mrs. Natalie Palomo. During the season the band attends 3 marching competitions, including Ozarko at Missouri State University, Ozark Mountain Marching Festival at Reeds Springs, and The Festival of Champions at University of Central Missouri.

“Some strengths were playing loudly and staying together in the music. We had a lot of positive feedback about our cohesion as a band,” Head Band Director, Natalie Palomo tells us. On October 7th, the Marching Eagles competed at their first marching festival for the season.

The Fair Grove Marching Eagles took the field and performed at 10:22am. During their 5 minute, 49 second performance, the weather took a turn and it began to rain. The Eagles didn’t let the rain ruin their performance and they pushed through and finished strong to go out with a bang.

“Ozarko went really well! We placed well this year and improved from previous years,” Stated Palomo. At 1:00pm all of the teams that competed throughout the day send their Drum Major and Color Guard Captains to line up to prepare for awards. The marching bands leaders march up on the field and accept their well deserved awards. The Eagles were awarded 6th place, beating 3 bands out of the 9 in their division.  

“Some goals were to improve our dynamic contrast, and work on staying in step/time with the music. Making sure we’re accurate all the time, not just when it is a performance,” states Natalie. Palomo says that her favorite part was getting to see the kids hard work and all the extra hours of practice come into play at the bands first competition of the season. She believes that the band has worked very hard and that she is already seeing huge improvement in just one competition.