Every year the De Soto High School marching band piles on buses and heads to the Kansas State Marching Festival to be critiqued by the Kansas State band, and it has now become a tradition. This year, the DHS marching band received a 1 rating on Oct. 7.

   With all the hard work the marching band had to put into getting a good rating at the festival, there was no room for free time.

   “It was a very long day, and I had no break at all really. We were almost always working on our show, but overall it was really fun,” said sophomore trumpet player Faythe Reeves.

    Receiving a 1 rating is the best rating possible. After the long day at K-State, the DHS marching band celebrated not just once but twice.

   “We celebrated at K-State when we first found out we got a 1 rating and then on Monday’s practice we celebrated with Bradford,” Reeves said.

   During DHS’ performance there were also solo features. Junior trumpet player Daniel Searcy was one of them.

   “It was very scary because it was my first time performing a solo during a competition. It was also scary to know that the former classmates were in the crowd. It felt good to hear that people liked it,” Searcy said.

   The marching band played a number of songs, including Mask of Zorro by James Horner, Sway by Michael Bublé and Malagueña by Ernesto Lecuona.

   The marching band theme, Latin Explosion, seems to be a big hit with the band members.

   “It’s really cool because, for Latin [music], you have to have really loud trumpet players and the band has 32 trumpets. It is also cool because we haven’t done anything like it before,” Reeves said.