Instrumental groups to perform for Eagle Fest, Sept. 29

Recently band, color guard, and percussion completed their latest efforts in raising money for an upcoming Hawaii trip. Selling coupon books, the instrumental groups raised $5,000 to support their trip in 2019. In order to fundraise as much money as possible the groups will be volunteering at various events and running FCS home football games.

Band director for five years, Lesley Bannister plans on numerous fundraisers throughout the year including a father-daughter dance and an Easter floral fundraiser.

“Our next event is when we are performing and running booths at the upcoming Eagle Fest,” Bannister said. “We are doing face painting, gaga ball, popcorn and candy as well as the dunk tank. So each of the performing groups are running a booth and we will earn money from that. We also just did a coupon saver book where we sold over 200 books, so we raised a quite of bit of money from that.”

Color guard student Brittany McCann, ‘20,  looks forward to the opportunity to showcase her talents outside of normal performances.

“I am definitely looking forward to the Hawaii trip,” McCann said. “I think this is the first time that color guard has actually been recognized for anything or gotten the opportunity to do anything, because otherwise we haven’t really done anything together as a team except for local shows or parades but the Hawaii trip is actually something serious.”

Finishing his fifth-year in FC band, Nathan Martin, ‘20, sees the trip as an escape from the routine of school.

“The thing is about school is that it is all monotonous so all the field trips, especially now the Hawaii trip is just a fun and different event that breaks up the usual monotony of school,” Martin said. “I especially am looking forward to playing on the Arizona during the trip.”

Our next event is when we are performing and running booths at the upcoming Eagle Fest. We are doing face painting, gaga ball, popcorn and candy as well as the dunk tank. — Lesley Bannister, Instrumental director

Bannister is already scheduling activities to strengthen the musical group’s performance abilities.

“We are getting a chance to perform at the Pearl Harbor Monument,” Bannister said, “which is an amazing opportunity we are going to perform on the deck of the Mighty Moe which is a retired battleship. We are going to do a clinic at a local college and do a school exchange with a local high school which means we are going to play for them and they will play for us.”

Although excited for the Hawaii trip, McCann still counts on rigorous practices and extensive performances during the winter season.

“I am most excited for when winter comes around because that’s when we do most of our performances, but parades are fun too,” McCann said. “Winter performances are a lot more serious, we get a lot more practice in and we are actually competing. However this year we are doing competitive parades which should be interesting.”

Bannister encourages students and parents looking to get involved to contact her or check Schoology for more information.

“The best way to get involved to shoot me an email or call me,” Bannister said. “We are using signup genius this year which makes it easy for students and parents to log in and see what spots are available and then sign up.”

Percussion and color guard will be performing in the annual Pismo parade on Oct. 19-20.

At the home football game on Oct. 19 a Dutch Bros truck will be serving drinks which will also support the instrumental groups.

The instrumental groups will also be performing at the Clovis Electric Light parade on Dec. 1.

For more articles read: Over 550 Seniors Attend 2018 Grandparents Day or Breaking: Caruthers Fair 2018

Vijay Stephen can be reached via Twitter or email.