Monday – 6-8p Percussion. We are working on auditions for spots in the marching percussion section.

Tuesday – 7p – West Area Band Festival. This involves only the Wind Ensemble and Overland Express along with the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th-grade bands. OE will begin playing by 6:45 so should be in the building by 6:30. Wind Ensemble, please be in your spot by 6:45. This is Concert Dress. Wind Ensemble will have the rehearsal with 5th and 6th graders at 10a. Please get out of class by 9:45 to come to the gym to practice Fidgets. You will go back to class at the end of the hour.

West Area Orchestra Festival is Thursday for those select Wind Ensemble Members playing with the orchestra. That is also a Full Concert Black dress event. Mr. Mulvenon will give you more details on Wednesday.

State Solo and Ensemble Festival in Topeka this Saturday. See the attached (Full) schedule. Paper copies are available in the front of the band room. You are responsible to get yourselves to Topeka and back. Carpooling is the norm. Mr. Hupe and/or I will be there to help as needed. Just like regionals, get there early and scope out the lay of the performance rooms. Warm-up is in the gym. You are responsible to get your own music, and instruments to and from Topeka. If you need to get back for Prom, I will email results.

Lettering Points are due next Tuesday. Have you looked at CHARMS to see if your points are correct? Destiny, I need the Pep Band letting points Monday so I can put them in. Let me know what is missing. I will be updating other points tonight.

BAW Meeting – Tuesday 7p. We will be talking about the banquet and next years officers.

Seniors – Have you completed the BAW Scholarship application? I should be getting information in the next day or so for the Kelsie Smith Scholarship. The KS Scholarship is open to any senior attending a Kansas College and playing in the marching band???? (If I remember correctly.)

North Pizza Jazz- Friday, May 3. The schedule was sent earlier this week.

Car Show– Both Jazz bands AND the PEP BAND will perform at this event. Please continue to like and send the car show application to friends and neighbors! This is a fundraiser. It is free to attend and we need parents and student to vote for their favorite cars – no experience or technical expertise needed! We make money from people showing their cars. We will also have food vendors available for lunch. The show is from 10a-12 noon.

Spring Band Concert – Monday, May 6, 7:00p in the auditorium. This is a “dress nice” event. Concert black not required. Ladies, please do remember,that you are sitting on a stage. Short skirts are not recommended. Jeans, shorts, T-shirts, tennis shoes are still not acceptable. Men, a nice polo or dress shirt (w/ or w/o tie) with casual or dress slacks are the order of the day. Ladies, dresses, skirts, slacks with a nice blouse is great.

Band Dessert Banquet– Monday May 13th – This is a celebration for EVERYONE in the band and color guard. Every student will be recognized for their contributions. While seniors will definitely be honored, there are other awards that are given to other non-senior members of the band. At the end of the night is the ever-popular Year-End Video. There is no cost to anyone for this event. Please make plans to attend with your entire family!

HELP NEEDED – Flags– We had our pre-audition meeting for flag auditions on Wednesday of last week. We had four girls show up. This is open to men or women. We had several sign-up for more information at the electives fair and there was a lot of interest at the middle school earlier this year. Band members – we need YOU to encourage your friends to join us! We MUST have 8 to field a group this year! I don’t think we can put just four people on the field for a guard. Please understand I am not asking for you to take up a flag – I want instrumentalists playing. We need OTHER people to join us. We need YOU to encourage others to come join us. The audition to make the team is NOT difficult! We are having after-school rehearsals all this week M-Th from 3:00-4:30, with the audition on Friday at the same time. Please, reach out to your friends TONIGHT and during the day tomorrow.

Graduation Band – Wednesday, May 15. All non-senior Wind Ensemble and first block Symphonic Band members are required to play. Freshmen in 7th block, we would love to have some of you join us. Let Mr. Thomas know if you are interested. We can rehearse the music during class after our May 6th concert.

It’s been a great year…keep pushing! A few more events to go.

Bill Thomas and Kevin Hupe
Shawnee Mission West H.S.