Panther marching band, guard continues streak at state

For the 32nd straight year, Creston Community High School earned a Division I rating at the Iowa High School Music Association State Marching Band Festival Saturday in Glenwood. Under the direction of band director Michael Peters and his wife Lisa who directs the color guard, Panthers scored an 83.6, the second highest score the band and guard has received since Peters started teaching at Creston in 1995.

“It was a great day and you couldn’t have asked for nicer weather,” said Peters. “It was perfect.”

The Panther marching almost had an issue when equipment used by the front line percussionists, such as keyboards, kept tripping the circuit breaker.

“They had to stop the clock. The kids had to stand there for almost five minutes waiting for everything to get figured out,” said Peters. “Thank goodness one of our band dads, Dennis Hopkins, figured it out.”

When everything came back on, Peters said he was relieved.

“It was like, ‘I am not going through this again. We are not going without electricity for another show. We did that at Clarinda without electricity. We are going to do this,” he said.

Peters said the 72-piece Creston marching band and color guard, had its best run of the entire year at Glenwood.

“It was amazing. The kids did great. We had parents from other schools coming up and asking, ‘Are you the director from Creston? Your kids are so good,’” he said.

Creston’s high school band performed “Dragon Hunt” by Randall Standridge in its show titled “Ferocious” which they also performed Oct. 4 at the 66th Annual Southwest Iowa Band Jamboree in Clarinda.

Peters said some bands do a new show at every competition of the year, but CCHS’s show has more sets in this one show than other schools have all year long. For “Ferocious,” the CCHS marching band and color guard had to learn 67 sets.

“What we had at the beginning of the year is not exactly what we had at the end of the year because I change things,” said Peters. “But all-in-all they learned one show because it’s so extensive what we do. What we do is really hard. We’re not just learning a couple tunes and we stand there and play, they have to memorize the whole show, they have to memorize all those sets, the guard has extraordinary stuff they are doing.”

Peters said it was not only nice to get a one, but to get one from each of the six judges. The judges critique bands on how well the band marches and plays as a whole, and how the members march and play instruments individually. Two judges observe the percussionists and color guard.

Peters said his band did well because of the support of parents and the effort of his students.

“We got a I because we work hard,” he said. “I truly believe if our kids do the best they are capable of doing the rest of it takes care of itself.”