The Marching Hawks

The sounds of “Daytripper” and “Can’t Buy Me Love” filled the streets of Marshalltown, Saturday morning. The Marching Hawks performed in the annual Oktemberfest Grand Parade, playing the tunes of the well-known group, the Beatles. The Marching Hawks perform in this parade every year to show off the talents of our band and to receive a rank in the 1A division. This year, the band performed part of their marching show, the L-S fight song, and a drum cadence. The Marching Hawks earned second place in division 1A. “Students rose to the challenge of marching at various paces while performing three different tunes and a drum cadence. The color guard lead the band with their challenging, original routines written by the students themselves. I
Only 12 out of the 17 members played instruments in the band on Saturday. Three of these members were of the color guard. Bret Stravers and Noah Johnson, middle school band member, were in charge of carrying the L-S band banner in front of the band. Drum major, Senior Mariah Vos lead the band through the long, hot parade. Vos commented, “It was a good learning experience because we are a young band. It went better than I thought it would.”
The color guard put together their own routines that were performed at the parade and at football games. “It was very hot outside, but I enjoyed doing the color guard routines,” said Junior Caitlyn Bartholomew, Color Guard member. The Marching Hawks were one of ten bands that performed on Saturday. Other bands included Marshalltown, Grinnell, and East Marshall. In total, there were 121 entries in the parade. The parade started at 10:00 a.m. and ended around 12:00 p.m. The parade route itself was a little over an hour and the band was sweating before it even started. With temperatures in the 90’s, the band appreciated the well-deserved water at the end of the parade. “I enjoyed the experience but my favorite part was finally getting to take off the quads and my uniform and just sit,” commented Andrea Bogaard,