With the marching band’s victory at the Bands of America (BOA) Grand Nationals competition, this year’s marching band season has concluded. Assistant band director Chris Kreke said, “Another season filled with improvements and hardships has passed. The (marching band) students have really become a team through all of this.”

 In conjunction with this, some of the marching band members are now able to take a break from the long, jam-packed marching band schedule. For others, new activities have just begun.

 “A majority of the people go on to jazz band, if they can do that, as a sort of off-season thing,” Carrie Pawlovich, drum major and senior, said. “And for people who don’t do jazz band, you work really hard then, all of a sudden, you get cut off, and your life’s normal again.”

 According to Pawlovich, students now have the time to relax after a strenuous season, but they want to get back on the field. Pawlovich said, “You have time to hang out with your friends, but you feel very, very empty. You feel like you should have practice that morning, but you don’t.”

Students will have to wait for next year’s marching band call-out in the summer. For graduating seniors, it is especially bittersweet. Pawlovich said, ” I will really miss the people. We’ve just formed such close bonds. The experience is just so fun; you don’t want it to end.”