Mickey Mouse, Goofy and the rest of the gang weren’t the only ones entertaining patrons at Disney World on May 30. The Golden Eagles Marching Band was performing down Main Street right along with them.
Every two years, the band from Seneca High School takes a trip as a team and this year they chose Disney World.
“The opportunity to march down Main Street was given to us and all the kids were really excited about it,” band president Kim Brown said.
Seventy-nine members of the band made the trip. The group flew down together on Wednesday, May 29 and performed the next day at 2:30 p.m. under the direction of Keith Styers.
“The performance went really well,” Brown said. “All the kids had a great time and really had a lot of fun performing on that big of a stage.”
The trip was well deserved after a successful year with a difficult theme.
“They had a great year,” Brown said. “The theme they chose was really difficult and they did an awesome job with it.”
The band’s theme for the year was “Rocky Balboa.” Every performance included a training sequence complete with “Rocky” running up the Philadelphia Museum of Art stairs, and a boxing ring with a match acted out by the color guard.
The Golden Eagles performed at the USBands National Championships in East Rutherford earlier this season, competing in the 3A division and finishing in seventh place overall.
USBands uses a classification system based on group and class designations to make sure bands of similar size, style and experience are grouped together to compete. A tier-based system is utilized where each competitive class is judged on a separate scale that reflects the expected level of proficiency. Class “A” bands are judged on a scale with fundamental to intermediate skills.
The Golden Eagles have had a lot of contributions from their senior class, making this trip possible. A majority of the seniors have been members of the Golden Eagles marching band all four years. All are section leaders and drum majors.
After their performance, the band stayed in Florida for another three nights, enjoying the trip that was two years in the making. They flew back on Sunday, June 2, just in time to be back in class Monday morning.
