For the Marching Highlanders, winning never gets old.
For the second consecutive year, Anderson was crowned the champion Friday night at the Indiana State Fair Band Day competition.
The band’s show, “Cirque Du Ecossais,” evoked vintage circuses from the late 1800s to early 1900s. Band director Richard Geisler said the band’s evening performance was its best one of the season.
“I was very proud of seeing this show just come to life,” Geisler said. “I thought the kids had a really strong run, and I’m really proud of how well they put that show out there.”
Geisler said the overall season went smoothly for the group.
“It was a great season,” Geisler said. “The kids were a pleasure to work with. The experienced kids were tremendous leaders. The new kids, they bought in to work really hard. This (season) felt like it went by too quickly. It’s sad to see it come to a close.”
Dolby Westerfield, a recent graduate of Anderson High School, said the evening performance was an ideal way to cap his high school band career.
“I feel like that was a really good performance, probably the best of the season,” Westerfield said. “I’m really proud of how far everyone came. This season, everyone really bought into the show. We’ve come up a lot from our first performance, and with this being the peak, I’m really happy with it.”
The band, 99 strong this year, added to its storied history at the state fair. Anderson has now won nine Band Day competitions and has 70 appearances in the competition, the most of any band.
Anderson won state fair marching band championships in 1957-59, 1985-86, 2010, 2019 and 2025. The band took second place in 2024 behind Muncie Central.
The city’s other high school marching bands, before school consolidation, also won state crowns — Highland in 1968, 1970-71, 2005, 2007 and 2009; and Madison Heights in 1963 and 1980.
Friday night’s performance on the track at the state fairgrounds was the swan song for the 2026 Marching Highlanders — the final show for the Class of 2027.
Anderson was the only local band to make the finals. Frankton-Lapel narrowly missed a berth, finishing 17th. Two other Madison County bands, Cowan-Daleville and Alexandria, competed in the preliminaries but did not advance to the evening competition.
This was Frankton-Lapel’s sixth Band Day appearance since consolidation.
The unified band finished 17th during its first appearance in 2021 but had reached the finals by finishing in the top 16 during prelims every year since. Frankton-Lapel finished eighth in 2024 and ninth last year.
This article appeared in The Herald Bulletin.