In early fall, Marcus and I jokingly brought up the idea of an indoor drumline. Mr. Wilkes took us seriously ... little did we know what we were getting ourselves into! In late December, Marcus and I were called into his office and Mr. Wilkes questioned us a little bit about the indoor drumline idea. He said it was basically up to us (not knowing how much STRESS would be in this!) and we decided to try it. Starting with 16 people(including the pit) we ended up with 14 at our one and only competition. We practiced every Monday after school until 6:00. Our show was RUSH, you know, the OLD band!  None of us were really thrilled about it, but we were going to make it work.

    The Friday of spring break, exactly one week before our competition in Virginia Beach, we were beginning to learn our drill. That Monday we had another practice and re-learned it.

    On Thursday, we left after school for the beach. I'm not entirely sure about the rest of the line, but I was nervous. From what I heard ... the lines we were up against were POWERHOUSES!! Our jazz band competition went awesome. Our concert band concert was supposedly ok, but not from the percussive point of view. Before our competition, I was a nervous wreck, downing Tums, and spazing out! When we walked in on that gym floor, something came over me ... the fact that everything was going to be ok!

    We made it through the competition PERFECTLY. Everyone's solos were awesome, and afterwards everyone was thrilled. The next day was spent at Busch Gardens. That night was the awards ceremony.

    We set there waiting through chorus, wind ensembles, blah, blah, blah. Then they announced jazz bands! First place with the score of 95.0, superior rating ... Staunton River! Marcus was glowing! Concert band ... second place with a score or of 85.0, excellent ... Staunton River. Then on to marching bands, winter guard, winter guard with drumline, then ... INDOOR DRUMLINE! I was sitting on the ground almost dead by this point. There were five lines in our class. We weren't second our third ... I started to tell my people that we beat every line out there, then "with a score of 98.0, superior rating, first place goes to ... STAUNTON RIVER" WE DID!! All the stress and hard work really did pay off!