The Allen County-Scottsville High School Patriot Band is scheduled to open the 2018 festival season September 8 at the South Central Kentucky Marching Band Classic at Glasgow High School. Band and color guard members have worked since the spring to create the show.
“The show is progressing really well,” explained J. Shawn Huff, Director of Bands at Allen County-Scottsville. “We have the first two songs with the preshow and a third song to go. The kids are working really hard. It’s been really hot this week but the kids are chugging through. This weekend, we’ll perform the first couple of songs at the ball game.”
This year, the festival show is entitled “It’s All in Your Head.”
“It’s about the Mad Hatter and a prospective from that,” Huff noted. “It’s not really the Disney version, it’s darker than that. We will use lots of colors, moving tables, and digital backdrops that are coming. We also have new uniforms that will be here in a couple of weeks. We will have a completely new look with this interesting show.”
Director Huff adds that the band
has plenty of returning experience.
“This is a good group,” Huff added. “The senior class is a strong class. We are also a pretty veteran group which makes things go really quickly.”
Huff likes the overall “personality” of the 74-member band.
“Every year the personality of the band changes when the seniors leave and the freshman come in,” Huff said. “It’s always interesting to see how the group meshes and what the personality is. This group meshes really well. We are 75 percent girls so that has changed the prospective a little bit. But, I think it’s one of the best groups we have ever had.”
The band will be under the field command of second-year drum major Nathaniel
Stinson.
“Nathaniel will be dressed in the full Mad Hatter costume.,” Huff pointed out.
The Patriot Band has five festivals on the calendar prior to the Kentucky Music Educators Association’s West Regional Quarterfinals. Included in the schedule will be a first for the AC-SH band since Huff came to AC-S 22 years ago.
“Since I came here in 1996, we have never hosted a regular season show,” Huff said. “We have
hosted the state level show several times but this one is all on us. We are doing it through the MSBA, the Mid-States Band Association. It’s a little bit different. We will have judges coming from Pensacola Florida, Birmingham Alabama, Chicago Illinois, Lexington, and Missouri. We will have 15 bands in four classes right now. The farthest band will be coming from McCracken County. We felt like we will have a lot of bands that have never been on this campus before.”
The home festival will be on Saturday, September 15. The first band will
perform at 3:45 with awards scheduled for 8 p.m. that evening.
AC-S starts the season with the September 8 festival at Glasgow---an
event which includes bands from Hart County, Barren County, Greenwood, and the host
school. The Lindsey Wilson College Blue Raider band will also present an
exhibition. The festival starts at 5:15 with AC-S slated to perform at 5:45.
The remaining schedule includes competitions at Nelson County on
September 22, Warren East on September 29, and Barren County on October 13. The
band will then participate in the Kentucky Music Educators Association (KMEA) Class
3A West Regional
Quarterfinals at Warren Central High School on October 20. If the band
qualifies, the Patriots will move the KMEA Class 3A state semifinals on October
27. If the band finishes in the top four at the semifinals, the band will
compete for the state championship in their class on the evening of October 27
at Kroger Stadium at the University of Kentucky. The season will conclude on
November 3 with competition in the Mid-States Band Association Class 2A
Championships in Miamisburg, Ohio.
The marching Patriots will
also present a glimpse of their festival show during pre-game activities at
home football games.
In addition to Huff, the band is under the direction of assistant band directors Chelly Stamps and Gina Huff, who serves as the band’s creative director and is responsible for the colorful visual effects incorporated into the show.