During marching season, we only send Thunder Band News to marching students and their parents. This helps prevent inundating non-marching students and parents with information that they do not need. After marching season is over, we transition to sending the email to all students and parents. We will still have quite a bit of information about marching band up until the Rose Parade, so this transition will happen later this year.
Since this issue contains information about Mr. Mangelson’s announcement of his upcoming school change, this is going to all students and parents.
We have also found that our student records gradually get out of date, resulting in some students and parents who have graduated or moved not being removed from the distribution list. If this applies to you, please reply to this email so that we can remove you from the list.
In This Issue
- St. George Trip Report
- Thank You, Band Parents
- Video of Mr. Mangelson’s Announcement
- Marching Band Rehearsal Schedule
- Rose Parade Tour Itinerary
- Mt. Timpanogos Marching Band Competition Pictures
- Lifting Hands International and Festival of Trees Service Events
- Alpine Honor Band and All-State Band
- Band Booster Meeting November 15
- SignUpGenius Summary
- Upcoming Events
- Upcoming Rehearsals
There are 56 days until the 2018 Rose Parade. Rose Parade fun fact of the week: Actor and humanitarian Gary Sinise has been selected as the Grand Marshal for the 2018 Rose Parade.
St. George Trip Report
Congratulations to the Marching Thunder on a successful weekend in St. George! On Friday night at the Rock Rocks Invitational, we were fifth place in the state class 5A competition and fifth place overall. At the Bands of America regional competition on Saturday, we qualified for finals for the sixth year in a row and finished in eighth place out of 31 bands.
In individual visual performance, scored by judges down on the field, we actually scored second behind only American Fork. Our overall visual ranking was fourth place and our individual music performance ranked us in fifth place overall. These are some really great marks!
The students, staff, and parents who attended all agree that we improved with each performance, putting our best show ever on the field during finals Saturday night. Video of the final performance is available online at https://youtu.be/ALxTWWBmtBQ. Thank you to Mike Balzotti for the video.
We are so proud of our Marching Thunder and all they have accomplished this season. Well done, Marching Thunder! Now on to the Rose Parade.
Thank You, Band Parents
Thank you to all of the parent volunteers who made this trip to St. George and all of our competitions this year possible. We could not take such great care of our students without the small army of dedicated parents who work miracles each time our students go out on the field. Not only did we have a successful trip to the state final and Bands of America regional competitions, we managed to fit the band in our band new uniforms and have them ready to perform this weekend. This was no small feat since they arrived only two days before we left for St. George. Thank you for your sacrifice and dedication in behalf of our students. We love our Marching Thunder Band Parents!
Video of Mr. Mangelson’s Announcement
An email was sent out last night with the news the Mr. Mangelson has accepted the band director position at the new high school in Farmington and will be moving to that school next year. The announcement was made to parents and students at a meeting just before the students left St. George to head home. A video recording of that announcement has been posted on thunderband.com at https://www.thunderband.com/?page_id=3634.
Marching Band Rehearsal Schedule
Our new marching band rehearsal schedule begins this week. We will now practice every Wednesday from 3:00 to 6:00 PM. Because we only have five of these rehearsals, it is imperative that all students attend all rehearsals. If you have conflicts, please reschedule them so you can attend these last few rehearsals!
Rose Parade Tour Itinerary
The latest Rose Parade tour itinerary can be downloaded here. There are still some detail that have not been added, such as our Ronald McDonald House service project on Sunday, December 31. We will send additional updates as the itinerary details are finalized.
Mt. Timpanogos Marching Band Competition Pictures
The American Fork band has posted video and still images from the Mt. Timpanogos competition. These will be only be available only for a few more days. These photos should not be distributed or sold.
Pictures and video from this competition are online at https://americanforkband.smugmug.com/2017/Mount-Timpanogos-Marching-Band-Competition/n-xTNfgB.
Lifting Hands International and Festival of Trees Service Events
We have two Making a Difference service events left.
The first event is for Lifting Hands International. We will be gathering hygiene and school kits for refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon. The donations need to be the exact items listed, but you can donate a package of something. Size does not matter except no travel-size items will be accepted. All items need to be new.
Hygiene kits contain two bars of soap, one shampoo, one comb, one toothbrush, one toothpaste (must not expire for at least one year), one spray deodorant, and one wash cloth. School kits contain three pencils (please donate a closed package of unsharpened pencils—it can have fewer than or more than three pencils), one pencil sharpener, one eraser, one box of crayons, one plain notebook, and one glue stick.
You are welcome to donate individual items or to donate a complete kit in a gallon ziplock bag. Points will be per item donated. Be sure to fill out the SignUpGenius form or fill out the sign up sheet on the bins in the band room in order to get credit for your section for the items you collected and put in the bins.
You can solicit a few donations from your parents, but we ask that the majority of your donations are solicited from friends, neighbors, and extended family. We will be collecting items October 30 through November 21. Please put all donated items in the specified bins in the band room.
The second service event is the Festival of Trees. We will be decorating our small tree, and putting our Lifting Hands International kits together, immediately following the band practice on Tuesday, November 21. We will begin at 5:00 PM in the band room. Please stay after rehearsal to help with these service events. There will be a sign up sheet at that time to sign your name to so that your section gets counted in the contest.
The Festival of Trees committee has asked if our band would pass out their flyers to the community. Please take as many flyers and bookmarks as you can to put in business and public building windows and counter tops, with permission first, of course. The flyers will be next to the bins in the band room. Flyer distribution does not count for points toward the competition.
Thank you to all you students and parents who have given so much time to serve our community and world through the service events this band season. You have blessed many lives and you are truly making a difference!
Alpine Honor Band and All-State Band
Alpine Honor Band chair tests are at American Fork HS on Monday, November 20, at 2:30 PM. All students who have been notified that they were selected for Alpine Honor Band need to plan to attend the chair test audition.
The all-state band audition deadline has been moved to December 1. All students are encouraged to send in an audition.
Band Booster Meeting November 15
We will have our next band booster meeting on Wednesday, November, 15 at 7:30 PM. We will be working on preparations and details for our Rose Parade tour and final banquet.
There are also parent-teacher conferences that night, so we will begin our meeting without Mr. Mangelson and Mr. Megginson. They will join us when conferences end. See you there!
SignUpGenius Summary
- Lifting Hands International donations
http://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e044aa8a628aa8-lifting
Upcoming Events
- November 30–December 2 – Alpine Honor Band
- December 1 – All-state audition deadline
Upcoming Rehearsals
- November 8 – 3:00 PM to 6:00 PM – Rose parade rehearsal
- November 15 – 3:00 PM to 6:00 PM – Rose parade rehearsal
- November 21 – 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM – Rose parade rehearsal (Tuesday rehearsal)
- November 29 – 3:00 PM to 6:00 PM – Rose parade rehearsal
You are receiving this email because of your association with the Westlake High School band program. If you no longer have a student at Westlake or wish to be removed from the mailing list, contact us at thunderbandnews@gmail.com or reply to this message to be removed from the mailing list.