News Story - Idaho State Journal

POCATELLO - Two local high schools took first place in their respective divisions Saturday at Idaho State University's annual Marching Band Invitational.

Often referred to as the ''battle of the bands'' locally, the event featured 23 bands from throughout Southeast Idaho, Utah and even one from Elko, Nev. The bands competed in six categories, including musical performance, music general effect, visual execution, visual general effect, percussion, and colorguard.

Pocatello High School took first place in Division A, a grouping of schools with marching bands consisting of 49 or fewer members, according to Monte Grisé, director of ISU's Bengal Marching Band, and coordinator of Saturday's event.

''One of the great things about the event is that it brings more than 2,000 high school student from around the region to Idaho State University,'' Grisé said. ''It's a nice opportunity to get these students on campus.''

Pocatello High received the highest score in the musical performance category among the five schools competing in the Division A category. Century High School was also in Division A and took third place overall. Weber High School took second place in Division A.

The other local schools performing well Saturday were Blackfoot High School, which placed first overall in Division AAA, which is comprised of school bands with between 75 and 99 members. Highland High School took third place overall in the Division AAA category, and Elko High School place second overall.

In Division AA, for those schools with bands of between 50 and 74 members, Ogden High School placed first, West Jordan High School placed second and Tooele High School placed third.

In the Open Class Summary, a category created for school bands of 100 or more members, Davis High School placed first, Sky View High School placed second and Mountain Crest High School took third.

Several schools were also recognized for their outstanding performance in each individual judging category. The music categories were worth 275 points each and those scoring best in that category all won their respective divisions.

The visual categories were each worth 175 points and the percussion and colorguard categories were each worth 50, making a total of 1,000 point possible.

The highest score achieved Saturday was by Davis High School, which tallied up 948.67 points, barely edging out the day's second best score of 931.5 by Sky View High School.

Grisé is quick to point out, however, that while Saturday's event is a competition, it has other purposes as well.

''We like to put some emphasis on education,'' he said. ''We like to stress the development of music and marching skills.''

By Jimmy Hancock

This document was originally published online on Sunday, October 14, 2007

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