Jake Browning
reporter@thefranklinpress.com
Franklin High School’s Band tasted sweet victory at the Allstate Sugar Bowl in New Orleans on New Year’s Day.
In addition to performing in the New Year’s Day parade and the game’s halftime show, the band also put on their best performance for a field show competition with other bands that played in the day’s festivities. They brought home second place in that contest and were satisfied with their performance.
But an even bigger victory came in the Steps of Jackson Square contest, where the students took to the streets for an impromptu concert. With their friends, their mentors and the city of New Orleans cheering them on, the band took home first place and a plaque confirming them as the “Owners of the Steps of Jackson Square.”
“Jackson Square was the highlight of the whole trip,” drum major Hannah Pitts said. “Everyone’s energy stayed up the whole time. Everyone played off of each other very well.”
All of these positive responses started to add up as the trip went on. By the end, strangers were recognizing members of the band and congratulating them on how well they were doing. Band mom Rebecca Martin was proud to see the students playing on such a grand stage and making a name for themselves.
“People kept on stopping to say, ‘That little town was the one making all that noise?’” Martin said. “They remembered us.”
Regardless of the awards handed out at the end of the day, the band members had a great time performing at the highest level they had ever known.
The band, under the direction of Buddy Huckabee, came home with six first-place trophies, for General Effect, Music, Marching, Colorguard, Drum Major and Class A Band. They just missed winning for best band overall, regardless of size.
Percussion instructor Daniel Ball said that events of this size are an exhausting experience even when they don’t involve long-distance overnight travel, and that it’s normal for the kids to show signs of mental strain in the way that they play. To his pleasant surprise, they never lost their enthusiasm for the city or the event.
“Parades are usually something you dread getting through,” Ball said. “I’ve never known a group of kids to get to the end of the parade and ask ‘can we go through again?’ but that’s what happened. It was amazing.”
On Thursday, Jan. 2, the band buses pulled back up to Franklin High under the watch of a police escort sent by mayor Bob Scott, bringing a chapter in the band’s history over a year in the making to a close. With a collection of awards and a lifetime of memories to hang onto as souvenirs, it’s safe to say that playing the Sugar Bowl is an experience that the band members will never forget.
“It was so crowded with so many people who were so energized to be there,” said drum major Jared Ross. “To be a part of such a big show with so much going on and so many people watching. … It was awesome to play for all of those people who were enjoying it as much as we were.”