FHS marching band to begin season Friday

FAIRFIELD — The Fairfield High School marching band will perform its first routine of the season during halftime of the Trojans’ varsity football game Friday night against the Mt. Pleasant Panthers at Trojan Stadium.

FHS band director Hannah Ball said the marching band is preparing three pieces, all arrangements of famous “boy band” songs from the 1990s, one from NSYNC (“Bye Bye Bye”) and two from Backstreet Boys (“I Want It That Way” and “Larger Than Life”).

Ball said that featuring the ‘90s boy bands was her idea.

“These songs are my jam,” she said. “The students are familiar with these songs, too, especially ‘I Want It That Way.’ They’re upbeat tunes that are fun to dance to, and the students seem to be enjoying them so far.”

Ball just concluded a week and a half band camp with the marching band, which included three-hour sessions all week from Aug. 8-12, plus another two days of practice Aug. 18-19. She said most students don’t practice their instrument over the summer, so it takes them a few weeks to get up to speed.

“I’ve noticed an improvement in them even from this week to last week,” Ball said on Thursday. “Once they’re back in school and we can have rehearsal every day, they should be in great playing condition by the end of August. The kids have been working hard in camp, and we’ve had a great turnout every day.”

Ball said the number of students in band is up slightly from last year, while the number of students in the color guard is down a bit, with the total around 70 members. The school does not have a coach for just the color guard, but the district’s new middle school band teacher Helaina McCoy will be overseeing the group, and assisting Ball with the high school band.

McCoy graduated from Davis County High School and got her BA in music education from William Penn University. This will be her first year of teaching full-time, though she was a long-term substitute at Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont as a 5th-8th grade band teacher last year. She also plays the flute in community concert bands.

In addition to playing at all the home football games this fall, the marching band will participate in the Kiwanis Kids Day parade on Sept. 17. Its drumline will perform at the Fairfield Farmers Market at Howard Park on Sept. 24. The band will compete in the Davis County Marching Band Festival on Oct. 1, before its Band Extravaganza at Trojan Stadium on Oct. 20 to round out the fall performance season.

In June, the band and choir took a trip to St. Louis, where the band got to perform just outside Busch Stadium, and the choir got to perform at a local church. The students visited a zoo, saw the St. Louis Arch, and spent a day at Six Flags theme park.

Ball said the band and choir are still feeling out what sort of trips they want to go on. The band had a history of making a trip to Disney World once every four years, but the COVID pandemic complicated that tradition, and Ball said Disney changed its rules about what bands are allowed in, so returning to Disney World in 2022 was not an option. That’s why the band and choir decided to perform in St. Louis instead.

“We’re still figuring out if we should do one big expensive trip once every four years, or a less expensive trip more frequently,” Ball said.

Once the marching band season concludes, the band will transition into its concert band season. The first concert band season of the year is on Dec. 19.

Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com