SOMB Awards

Last night, 11/9/06, were the 2006 Sprague Olympian Marching Band Awards. It was a very exciting evening, so I've decided to blog it. Allow me to give you a play by play. . .

The presentation was begun by Jacob Pratt. He introduced himself as band council president and then led into the awards ceremony. The awards ceremony consisted of section leaders giving out awards to outstanding individuals, and here's a recap. I couldn't remember all of the awards given, but I did my best. If you remember one, please leave it in a comment so I can add it!

Brass (Presented by Truman Capps):
Outstanding Veteran -- Truman Capps
Outstanding Rookie -- Shequana Smith
Most Improved Rookie -- Nick Geiger
Most Improved Vet -- Margaret

Woodwinds (Presented by Michael Snively):
Outstanding Veteran -- Christy Baggett
Outstanding Rookie -- Ethan Alano
Most Improved Rookie -- Erin Kahn
Most Improved Vet -- Steven Ponec

Drumline (Presented by Joe Lipscomb):
Outstanding Veteran -- Joe Lipscomb
Outstanding Rookie -- Austin Baker
Most Improved Rookie -- Logan
Most Improved Vet -- Justin Cothran

Front Ensemble (Presented by Trenton Young):
Most Outstanding -- Trenton Young
Most Improved -- Drew Harker

Color Guard (Presented by Analisa Reyna):
Outstanding Veteran -- Analisa
Outstanding Rookie -- [Can't Remember]
Most Improved Rookie -- [Can't Remember]
Most Improved Vet -- [Can't Remember]

Spirit Award (Presented by Alyssa Valdez):
Male -- Trevor Nelson
Female -- Margaret

Class Awards (Presented by Alyssa Valdez):
Most Outstanding Freshman -- Brady McCulley
Most Outstanding Sophomore -- Nick Ogle
Most Outstanding Junior -- Brandon Haley
Most Outstanding Senior -- Michael Snively

Kevin Alano came up, talked a bit about the band boosters and thanked the parents for their help with the season.

We took a break from awards for a bit to watch our Finals performance at PCI. I was on tech support, so it was my job to make sure the movie played without a hitch. It played without a hitch. I don't have a video of it online, but DVD's are available for purchase, just get in touch with me (comment).

After the video, we continued with some awards. The funny awards were presented

Funny Awards (Presented by Jacob Pratt):
Hottie Award -- Nick Ogle
"Sorry, Your Name isn't Andrew" Award -- Tom
"Do you have a question" Award -- Analisa
"Kid at heart and most likely to be mistaken for a student" Award -- Mr. Such
"Best Impressions and most likely to not be himself" Award -- Mr. Howard

After all the awards had been given out, Mr. Such and Mr. Howard both gave speeches. Both speeches were very nice. After their speeches, Jake and I gave out one final award to Katie Such, for coordinating PCI and making it amazing. She got a trophy.

To finish off the evening, the slideshow. Regular readers of my blog know that I am the one in charge of creating the slideshow, and that I was very excited about it for some reason, but I WOULDN'T TELL YOU WHY! Well, last night the secret came out, and just as I predicted, it was very well received. Here's the story:

This being my senior year, I wanted this slideshow to be absolutely amazing. In order to be amazing, it had to have a certain element to it that no other slideshow has ever had. Well, I thought of that element, but it was going to be hard to attain. If you've ever seen a movie trailer, you've heard a particular man's voice. You know, that deep gravelly "In a world, where . . ." voice that's in every movie trailer ever, the movie voice guy. He was in a Geico commercial recently as well. His name is Don LaFontaine, and I decided to e-mail him, so I went to his website, got his e-mail address, and wrote him an e-mail. I explained that I was the historian for my band and that I was wondering if he would be willing to do a short soundbite for my slideshow. The next day I got an e-mail back. It said "Sure, I'd be happy to -- no charge -- my pleasure. I'll e-mail it to you on Monday". This coming from the man that gets paid thousands of dollars to speak. On Monday, sure enough, I received the e-mail with the MP3. He did two takes, for a total of ten seconds of audio, worth thousands of dollars.

Since the beginning of band camp, our director has used the phrase "In the beginning, there was rhythm" as a constant reminder that we need to internalize pulse. Well, this seemed catchphrasey enough, so this is what I asked Don LaFontaine to say. So, as you watch the following slideshow and hear that voice in the beginning, remember this:

Yes, that is the movie trailer voice guy.
No, no other slideshow has his voice in it.
Yes, although the tone of this blog entry is very reserved, I was uber excited when I found out he'd help me!

Here's the slideshow, enjoy. Turn your speakers on!



As you can see, the slideshow was uploaded to YouTube. I have also uploaded it to Google Videos, where you can actually download it as an MP4 file. The links are below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8Nt-sjt-7U
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2546356929785449331&hl=en


The slideshow was a huge success. It seemed as though everybody really enjoyed it, based on how many hands I shook afterwards and how many copies were requested. I'm glad everybody liked it, I hope I can make the spring slideshow just as good!

That concludes awards night, it was a very nice evening. I felt satisfied when I went home and I hope others did as well. Not everybody gets awards, so no worries everybody! This year was the first year for me to get an award since freshman year, and my freshman year practically everybody got an award. They're harder to get now, much fewer of them. So be happy for others, there is always next year, and remember that Marching Band is supposed to be fun, not a competition.


(just a reminder, if you can remember who else got awards, please comment)