Fair Grove Band and Color Guard Marches into a Great Season

After a great deal of hard work and practice this summer, the 2018-2019 season begins for the Marching Eagles. The Eagles have been polishing up their skills for this year’s halftime performances and competitions to come.

Natalie Palomo, the band director of the Fair Grove Marching Eagles, stated that, “off season included open practice days throughout the summer, where kids were welcome to hold sectionals or come in and practice on their own. Then we had band camp at the end of July, which is a full week of rehearsal from 8 AM-4 PM.”  When the off season came to a close, early morning practices began. The band and guard arrive early to school every morning to practice; they then practice from 6:45 to 9:06, which goes through the first hour of school.

The Marching Eagles theme for this season is “The Art of Espionage”. “It incorporates music from Mission Possible, Pink Panther, and James Bond. “For our side of the portrayal we have chosen uniforms that are more sleek and spy-like for the first movement, in the second movement the guard will be using canes instead of flags and will be wearing trench coats over their uniforms, and for the third we are wearing tux jackets over the uniforms and are incorporating a rifle line,” says color guard director, Audra Harmon. “The guard’s choreography is heavily influenced by spies and their stereotypes,” says Natalie Palomo.

The band and color guard have four marching competitions this year. The competitions include, Carl Junction on September 22, Ozarko on October 6, Ozark Mountain Marching Festival on October 13, and the Maple Leaf Marching Competition on October 20. “The band will hopefully get into finals this year, and place well,” says drum captain Mitch Van Cleave (11). As well as competing four Saturday’s in a row; the Marching Eagles perform during halftime at every home football game.