Championships Recap

Bus One leaving Mukilteo on Friday (photo by Cynthia Davis)

On Friday after school we loaded the buses and trailers for our trip down to Hillsboro. By 3:30PM we had left the school and were on our way to Oregon. We hit traffic, so we were a bit late to stop for dinner at Exit 108. Our original itinterary had us stopping for dinner at five, but because of the traffic our dinner break was from 6:15-7.

It had been raining pretty hard, and after the staff checked out the field at Tenino High School where we were supposed to rehearse, we decided to skip it and push through to Hillsboro. We had a quick bathroom break about an hour after dinner and arrived at Glencoe High School in Hillsboro at around 11PM.
After unloading the buses we had a quick meeting with Mr. Bathurst to discuss our plans for the evening. Lights out was at 11:45PM.



Back of the line for breakfast!

Wake-up call was at 7:30AM, followed by breakfast at 8:30. By 9:30 we were headed to Hillsboro Stadium for an early warm-up block since we had missed our rehearsal the night before.

Our morning rehearsal/warm-up block at Hillsboro Stadium (photo by Stuart Pitts)

After our morning visual and music warm-up block we headed to lunch. At 1:15PM we were back at camp, changing into uniform for our Prelims warm-up. At 2:00 we walked to our warm-up area. Our Prelims performance was at 3:45.

Headed to our prelims performance (photo courtesy of Stuart Pitts)

We did not feel great about our prelims show. The whole show had just felt a bit off. After going to the awards ceremony, we received fifth place with a score of 86. Only .5 away from Evergreen High School! We had never placed this high before and were very excited to perform in finals.

Dinner was cooked by our lovely parent volunteers. We ate burgers, salad, veggies, and pudding. A few alumni even stopped by the camp to say hello.

As we prepared for our finals performance there was a lot of excitement in the air. We were ready to give it our all. We headed to our last warm-up as the 2012 Kamiak Show Band.

Nick says a few words before we head to our finals performance (photo by Stuart Pitts)

We walked off of the field after finals feeling great about our performance. It had definitely been the best run of the season. We circled up to listen to a words from Stuart Pitts, Nick Benson, and Mr. Bathurst. All of them were very excited and very proud of what we had accomplished this year. A lot of tears were shed. After this we broke off quickly into sections and subsections, thanking the staff and each other for everything put into this program.

We changed out of uniform and headed off to the awards ceremony. We were happy to learn that our score had jumped to 87.45 and we had finished fifth, higher than the show band had ever placed!

These seniors got Nick Benson a birthday cake, since his birthday was the day after Championships.

At around 11:20PM we left Hillsboro Stadium and headed home. We stopped twice for bathroom breaks. One in Toutle Creek. We arrived safely at Kamiak at around 3:00AM (because of daylight savings time).

Thanks to everyone who supported us this year. Every staff member, chaperone, roadie, volunteer, and fan means the world to us. We could not do it without you!

Check the Gallery for more photos from the weekend.