Alamogordo High School marching band brings home 3rd in 2A

The Alamogordo High School marching band competed in the Bands of America Regional Championship competition on Friday, Sept. 22 and placed eighth out of 15 bands and third in its 2A category during preliminaries.

The band was awarded 11th place overall and will prepare to compete at the upcoming Socorro Independent School District (SISD) March Fest on Saturday, Oct. 7 at the Socorro Students Activities Complex in El Paso, Texas.

The Alamogordo High School marching band performed its show, A Lunar Enigma, at Aggies stadium where band staff said the students showed just what hard work and dedication could do.

A Lunar Enigma is said to tell the story and the stages of a Bloodmoon. The show has three parts, with the band currently working on a fourth movement.

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Alamogordo Lead Band Director Lucas Jackson said the students start rehearsal at 7 a.m. to prepare for competitions.

"These kids wake up at about 6 a.m. to prepare for practice, us band directors will start prep around 5 a.m.," Jackson said. "For this competition, call time was at 6:30 a.m., so we had the students ready to load buses and be on the road from Alamo to Las Cruces by 7:30 a.m. so we could make it to the competition by 8:30."

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Jackson said the early mornings are only half of what the band members endure to prepare for competitions. He said members rehearse every morning Monday through Friday and after school on Tuesday and Thursday, to take advantage of any opportunity to practice on the field.

The practices may seem like a lot of time and effort, but he said one of the more tedious tasks are uniforms. The uniforms the students must wear are two-pieced and the bottom half act as overalls before putting over the topcoat. This alone can take the band up to 30 minutes.

"We have to start preparing early for competitions because the uniforms can sometimes take us a while to prepare, shoeshine, and just all identical," Jackson said.

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Jackson said although the band is from Alamogordo, one of the smaller cities in New Mexico, it is 70 members strong with two drum majors to lead the band during its performance.

"We have one lead drum major and one extra that helps mid-way into the show to guide the back end of the band, our band luckily has its leaders, even section leaders to help us staff out," Jackson said. "We thankfully had section leaders all pitch in to buy breakfast that morning for their sections, we are just so thankful for that strong, student leadership support."

During the thick of the performance, Jackson said he can truly admire the performance and effort the students put on while also taking into consideration what needs work to better the performance.

"You know, as an administrator we see what needs to be worked on, but we also just really enjoy the show they put on," Jackson said. "And they put on a really good show this last performance."

Jackson said although the band does the footwork, he said the "band parents" and school staff have helped a tremendous amount.

"I just want to mention how thankful we are for the opportunities the students and parents have given us to make sure we, as a marching band, have made it this far this season and previous seasons as well," Jackson said.

Assistant Band Director Newell Ramsey said the district and local community has been very supportive of the high school marching band.

"I just wanted to thank the district too because they really allow for us to make it out to these competitions and they take much pride in our high school's marching band," Ramsey said.

Ramsey said he's thankful to everyone that made this last weekends preliminary victory possible and is eager for the upcoming SISD competition.

"We know the competition is in El Paso but for family and community members that love to support and watch marching bands compete SISD is a larger competition," Ramsey said.

The SISD event begins at 8 a.m. with the first band to perform at 9:30 a.m. Alamogordo High School will perform at 12:30 p.m.

Juan Corral can be reached at JCorral@gannett.com or on X, formerly Twitter at @Juan36Corr.

This article originally appeared on Alamogordo Daily News: Alamogordo High School marching band to compete in Texas