After arriving bright and early in the morning, the campus marching band and color guard got ready to depart for the 45th annual Selma Rotary Marching Band Festival, the final judged parade of the year.

After winning first place at the Caruthers Fair Parade and performing in Reedley, the high school marching band placed second in Division D for the second year in a row. Director Michael Ogdon says he is proud of his students for their Selma performance.

“The band has a good track record in Selma,” Ogdon said. “They placed second in 2008, we hoped for something close to it this year, and we are pleased to place second again. We missed first by less than one point.”

FC finished with 82.7 points while Riverdale’s band won Division D with 83.5 points.

After changing his song choice several times, Ogdon finally found one that fit the band.

“We started the year with ‘Stars and Stripes Forever,'” Ogdon said. “After a few weeks of working on it, we changed to John Phillip Sousa’s ‘The Thunderer.’ It just seemed the instrumentation was too broad for our group. We changed over to “The Thunderer” to take advantage of the superior players we have one to each part.”

Ogdon says Sean Carter, ’12, was picked out by the judges as a favorite for his musicality.

“I have to hand it to Sean,” Ogdon said. “He was picked out by the television commentators for his good tone and excellent playing. With only one trumpet, much of our musical quality falls on him. He’s terrific.”

While the rest of the band went home and relaxed after their performance, drum major Alex Aleman, ’10, and majorette Jessica Massie, ’11, returned to Selma to accept awards and watch field shows at the awards ceremony, which started at 7 p.m. Aleman says that in addition to her group’s success, she enjoyed the opportunity to take inspiration from other groups.

“I enjoy watching other bands,” Aleman said. “I get to see the other competition, and I get to meet new people. I think at the rate we are going, hopefully next year the band will be able to participate in the field show performance.”

While waiting for the ceremony to finish, Massie was greeted with a pleasant surprise of first place in the solo majorette competition, beating the second placed finisher from Fowler by 6 points.

“I was so happy when they called my name,” Massie said. “I improved my score by 11 points from last year so I was really happy about that. Also, I enjoy getting to go see the other field shows, although we may be too small for a field show, I enjoy watching others. I can only hope that the band just keeps improving more.”

The band is now preparing for their final parade of the year, the 90th annual Fresno Veterans Day Parade, Nov. 11. Over 9,000 people are expected to participate in 26 marching bands, floats and military vehicles. The parade is billed as the largest Veterans Day Parade on the West Coast and will honor the men and women of the United States Navy.

In order to supplement the group’s size, Ogdon asked the younger campus groups to join them.

“We are adding the elementary and junior high school bands to our high school band,” Ogdon said. “We are going to go from 20 to almost 50 marching at the Veterans Parade. The bigger numbers should make a bigger impression. Besides, elementary kids are cute.”

The festivities begin with the opening ceremonies in front of Fresno’s City Hall at 10:30 a.m. The FC step-off time will be near 11:15 a.m. in downtown Fresno. They will be lining up near Kern and P Streets. The band is the lead band for the second tier of the parade, just behind congressman Jim Costa. Parking on Veterans Day is free downtown.

FC Band: Tribute to the letter “I” from Tyler Duerr on Vimeo.

Listen to the band play their version of The ThundererFor more info, e-mail Ogdon or read the Oct. 20 article, Selma competition challenges small band.