Seniors earn a golden record throughout high school history
By Bentley Trivilino
SANFORD, Maine – Last Saturday at Biddeford High School’s Waterhouse Field, our own Sanford Spartan Marching Band took home gold in the Maine Band Directors Association finals with their show “Shades of Red,” continuing an impressive streak: five years of Gold medals.
The MBDA marching band circuit runs on a star system, where performers, rather than competing against one another, compete against themselves for a score out of five stars. While this system achieves its goal of eliminating some of the sourness that generally comes along with competitive sporting events, it does not get rid of the prestige.
To earn a gold medal, a band must score an average of five stars, or an 86 out of 100 or higher, in a total of 6 different categories, including drum major, colorguard, percussion, visual effect, music and general effect.
Only a few bands every year can do this, and not only did Sanford achieve five stars in five categories and a point and a half off in the sixth, this is now their fifth year in a row earning a gold medal at finals.
This year’s seniors are the first group to have a gold record.
To celebrate, the Sanford band received a police escort through main street of Springvale and Sanford. A prideful display of sirens blaring while the students scheered out the windows of their bus.
But the season is not quite over yet, wish them luck next weekend, when they’ll be performing their show one last time, attempting to take home first place, for the USBands finals in Massachusetts.
Leave a Reply