Band’s competition season ends

The Pride of Olney High School received a division two rating at the recent UIL Region North Zone marching band competition. While that is an “excellent” rating, it wasn’t enough to advance POOHS to the area-level round, and their competition season comes to an end.

A rating of 1 or “superior” is required to qualify for the next level.

The competition was held at Memorial Stadium in Wichita Falls on Saturday, Oct. 14.

High expectations were held for this event, and many were confident that they would advance.

Makayla Torres, senior drum major, said “... the only thing I could do was cry” when they learned the results. “I was also in shock because I had a huge feeling we would move forward to Area. As a senior and a drum major it made the announcements even harder to take.”

Torres said she thought the band could have done better memorizing the music and focusing on fundamentals.

“I think not rehearsing like we should perform was a huge factor,” Torres said. “When you don’t practice like you should play, so to speak, it can cause failure.”

POOHS has three more performances: Oct. 20 at the football game against Hawley at Cub Stadium; the Oct. 27 football game against Colorado City at Wolf Stadium, and the football game against Winters at Cub Stadium Nov. 3. There will be added performances if the Olney football team makes the playoffs.