by Corgan Petersen

The Atlantic High School Trojan Guard returned to Clarinda for the annual Southwest Iowa Band Jamboree.  The contest was held on Saturday, Oct. 4.  The band competed in parade and field marching.

The contest brought in 61 bands from all across Southwest Iowa.  The Trojan Guard placed fifteenth out of 61 in overall combined scores of field and parade marching.  The band took sixth place out of seven in both field and marching performances.

Band director Jarrod O’Donnell said, “The parade went really well.  The corners were the best they had ever been.  The field show I thought went better than the football game [halftime performance] the night before, but I thought we could have done a little bit better out there.”

Senior section leader Justin Somers said, “I feel like we could have put more pride and effort into our performance.  I think we did all right. We were all kinds of tired, though, so our performance was lackluster.”

The Trojan Guard was the first 3A school to perform in the parade, and marched to the song “Happy” from the movie “Despicable Me 2.”  They were also the first 3A school to perform their marching show.  This years marching show was titled “Toon Tunes,” and featured the songs: “The Incredibles” from Disney’s movie “The Incredibles,” “Let It Go” from Disney’s “Frozen,” “Happy” from the movie “Despicable Me 2,” and “Nightmare Before Christmas: Part 1” from Disney’s “Nightmare Before Christmas.”

The band has two more competitions this year.  This first is the Loess Hills Fieldfest which will be held Saturday, Oct. 11 at Glenwood High School.  The second is the Iowa High School State Marching Band Contest, which will be held Saturday, Oct. 18, at Treynor High School.