{"id":5256,"date":"2018-11-29T12:22:01","date_gmt":"2018-11-29T18:22:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mpisd.net\/mphs\/?p=5256"},"modified":"2018-11-29T12:22:01","modified_gmt":"2018-11-29T18:22:01","slug":"goin-gold-band-performs-at-att-stadium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mpisd.net\/mphs\/goin-gold-band-performs-at-att-stadium\/","title":{"rendered":"Goin\u2019 Gold Band performs at AT&T Stadium"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Tracy Farr
\nFrom the Mount Pleasant Tribune, photo courtesy of David Freeman<\/p>\n

To stand on the 50 yard line of \u201cCowboy Stadium\u201d is a once-in-a-lifetime experience not soon forgotten, no matter HOW \u201cDa Boys\u201d are playing that year \u2013 just ask the members of the Mount Pleasant High School Goin\u2019 Gold Band.<\/p>\n

The band, under the direction of Dr. Theodus Luckett, competed in the USBands National Championships held at AT&T Stadium Nov. 10, making it to the finals and placing 9th out of 26 bands from around Texas and Louisiana.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew it would be a great experience for the kids,\u201d said Luckett, \u201cThe kids absolutely loved it. They did a good job.\u201d<\/p>\n

USBands, under the auspices of Youth Education in the Arts (YEA), is the largest sanctioning body for scholastic music competitions in the United States. YEA is a non-profit organization based in Allentown, Pa. Its programs allow thousands of performers to participate in pageantry events nationwide.<\/p>\n

Usually, Texas marching bands are finished with their competition season by the middle of October unless they perform at the State competition in November. After that, the bands start getting ready for Christmas concerts, solo and ensembles, and working on new music for the spring.<\/p>\n

Goin\u2019 Gold Band members continued working on their marching show so it would be perfected by the time they got on the Cowboy\u2019s field \u2013 but when they got there, they encountered a slight \u201chiccup\u201d they weren\u2019t expecting.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I went onto the field, something looked different, but I couldn\u2019t put my finger on it,\u201d said Luckett. \u201cThe kids didn\u2019t know something was off until they started to march, and then uh-oh.\u201d<\/p>\n

The \u201csomething that was different\u201d was the location of the hash marks.<\/p>\n

Hash marks on the football field help marching band students guide themselves within the band\u2019s formations. On high school football fields, the hash marks are 53 feet apart. But on an NFL field, the hash marks are around 18 feet apart.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy kids were kind of unsettled [about the hash marks], but no one really said anything,\u201d said Luckett. \u201cAfter the first performance, I said, Well, I don\u2019t know about this one. I thought, oh my goodness, let\u2019s go ahead and pack up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we got to the awards ceremony, and they started to announce the bands that would get to [perform] in the finals, I already had it in my mind that we weren\u2019t going to make it,\u201d admitted Luckett. \u201cWhen they announced, \u2018the first band that will be performing is the Mount Pleasant band,\u2019 the kids were extremely excited. I was excited.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Luckett, the band performed much better during the finals, good enough to place 9th out of \u201csome really good bands,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was very, very proud,\u201d he added. \u201cThe kids did a really good job.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tracy Farr From the Mount Pleasant Tribune, photo courtesy of David Freeman To stand on the 50 yard line of \u201cCowboy Stadium\u201d is a once-in-a-lifetime experience not soon forgotten, no matter HOW \u201cDa Boys\u201d are playing that year \u2013 just ask the members of the Mount Pleasant High School Goin\u2019 Gold Band. The band, under […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5257,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-high-school-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mpisd.net\/mphs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mpisd.net\/mphs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mpisd.net\/mphs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mpisd.net\/mphs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mpisd.net\/mphs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mpisd.net\/mphs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mpisd.net\/mphs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mpisd.net\/mphs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mpisd.net\/mphs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mpisd.net\/mphs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}