Friday night’s victory at Indiana State Fair Band Day marked the glorious end of a six-year journey for the Anderson High School Marching Highlanders.
Anderson’s eighth state championship, its first since 2019, came following a summer of missed vacations, hard work, intensive rehearsals and narrow defeats.
“There were lots of days we would sit in the percussion room on the floor with the metronome and conduct to the tempos that we had,” drum major Molly Goode recalled Monday.
The Marching Highlanders marched in time to their own beat Friday, edging the Spirit of Muncie Band and Guard, the previous year’s champion. Anderson’s cumulative score of 92.85 was just 0.887 points better than Muncie’s.
Bands were scored in the following categories: music general effect, visual general effect, music ensemble, visual ensemble, best percussion and best color guard.
“Your ‘music ensemble, visual ensemble’ captions are where the adjudicators are assessing the difficulty of what was written for the performers to do and the performance level,” Director Richard Geisler explained Monday.
“Effect” scores cover how well an ensemble’s music and visuals mesh.
Anderson received high marks in the “visual general effect.” In the “music general effect” category, AHS had the second highest rating of the 16 bands that reached Friday night’s final.
The Highlanders fell slightly behind Muncie, taking second place in the preliminary round early Friday afternoon and leaving work to be done in the finals.
Geisler described his group’s post-prelim aura as excited and ready to compete, especially after a pep talk he gave.
“I talked to the kids about how, ‘This is a competition. The competitive part is exciting, fun. You have to make sure that you keep your head on. You take this high energy, highly entertaining show and sell it to the crowd,’” he said.
“We talked a bit to the kids about the history of our participation in the state fair, how there were a lot of alumni in the crowd. One day that’s going to be them.”
The Marching Highlanders took the track at the state fairgrounds determined to prevail Friday evening.
Guard member Samuel Ehrick sensed victory was at hand after the Highlanders’ show-stopping finals performance.
“I knew the run was perfect for me,” he said. “I couldn’t stop crying, it was so good. I don’t know what came over me that night. It was perfect.”
A photographer near the field repeatedly said three words Friday evening after the Highlanders performed: “They were flawless.”
The judges were similarly impressed with the Highlanders’ show, giving them top scores in most of the categories.
“Yeah, Anderson Highlanders, whew!” one music judge said in his post-performance comments. “You came to throw it down, and throw it down you did indeed. What a great, mature performance.”
Anderson’s victory Friday was probably a mild surprise to many who followed the high school marching band season in Indiana through the summer.
The Marching Highlanders finished in the top two of competitions throughout most of the season, right behind Muncie.
But at the Muncie Central Spirit of Sound competition July 19, the Anderson band slipped to third place as Kokomo surpassed the Highlanders by 0.075 points.
But Anderson rose to the top when it counted most, finally topping Muncie at the state fairgrounds Friday night.
As the final scores, ascending from 16th to first, were announced, the expectation was electrifying.
“I almost passed out,” Color guard captain Jazmine Morgan said. “I started hyperventilating. The other bands were pointing at us. They were like, ‘Oh, my gosh, that’s you.’
“I wanted to cry. I had the emotions to cry, but no tears were falling, probably because I thought I was going to pass out,” Morgan continued. “I’ve marched for three years. I never thought I would come this far to where I would be guard captain or able to win.”
Friday night’s Band Day championship was Anderson’s eighth and first since 2019. Anderson’s other titles came in 1957, 1958, 1959, 1985, 1986 and 2010.
Before consolidation, the city’s other high schools took home Band Day championships eight more times — Highland in 1968, 1970, 1971, 2005, 2007 and 2009; and Madison Heights in 1963 and 1980.
Much about the current band hearkens to the success of the Highland bands, from the Marching Highlanders name, to the plaid kilts, to the title of this year’s performance, “Scots and Soda.”
The history and traditions of all of those bands have now merged under one banner.
And this year, it all culminated in the ultimate victory for the Anderson Marching Highlanders.
This article appeared in The Herald Bulletin.