1979-1980 Round Rock Dragon Band (RRHS), Round Rock, Texas

[fresheuph79]

and I just looked again, there appears to be 12 members in the brass choir, so trombones were almost certainly in there and maybe two extra trumpets or two extra french horns.

[fresheuph79]

I just wanted to add a bit, regarding the quality of musicianship. For example, during Let it Be Me, you had a Xylophone solo played by an all-stater, and the brass choir consisting of 2 euphonium all-staters, 1 French Horn all-stater, and one future all-stater, one tuba player who would have been all-state had he not been right behind a future Pittsburgh Symphony Tuba player, and if Trombones had been in the choir, you would have had two Trombone all-staters.

no trumpets close.

[fresheuph79]

After the pandemonium ended, Mr. Jones remarked "I wanted to tell you earlier, but if I did, we would've had to buy them a new Wyatt's" Mr. Crane told me later how the chaperones/directors were practicing their frowns in the bathroom. Also, Mr. Crane swore that in the celebration Clark-trombone freshman launched himself and either Mr. Crane or another adult caught him. I wished I had seen that!

[fresheuph79]

Cindy, remember Wyatt's Cafeteria in Dallas? Now if we had video recorders going today, this would be must see youtube TV. We finished prelims, had no clue if we were going to finals or not, we went to Wyatt's for lunch/dinner. All adults had serious frowns on their faces, Mr. Jones gathers us in the parking lot, "That was a pretty good performance"(still frowning), pause, pause, pause, "Do you think....you can do it one more time?" (big smile) The place goes crazy, people, hats, music flying

[fresheuph79]

Thank you! CINDY !!!!I thought this video was gone. I-freshman euphonium player, had never seen the action news video. What is amazing to me is how well the sound holds up after all the years. imo, the sound was so good because there was such an incredibly high standard for quality of play in each section. There were approximately 217 of us on the field that night, and I was thinking, there was an all-state band member(or eventual all-state band member) in almost every section.

[rocketfan86]

Was the first state marching band contests by invitation from region?

[fresheuph79]

@rocketfan86 I found out later that this contest was not sponsored by the UIL. But I remember Mr. Jones told us about the contest, he said everybody who made a first division rating would be eligible to attend. Evidently a couple of years later the UIL decided to sponsor the event.

[cgravesdds]

Just a reminder--we had a different major contest show that same year. We went to Dallas for the "Parade of Champions" contest at the Cotton Bowl. We took the Dragonettes with us for that show. So we learned two big contest shows, plus our weekly halftime shows Valerie May is feature twirler. She went on to twirl at Baylor

[dragongild]

Awesome, Cindy! Thanks for posting this!

[oliversmum1]

that was great, Cindy! thanks SO MUCH for locating this!....it's funny how much you start to remember when you listen to it......good fun...... and heck I'd be hissing too- that crooked line wasn't so great..:(((- but you can tell our sound was GREAT! thanks so much for posting it!

[cgravesdds]

Hissing sound at 6:49 is the band director reacting to the crooked line in the rotating mushroom in Greensleeves.

[cgravesdds]

First two minutes are a KVUE broadcast on the state marching contest. Black and White video starts at 1:49. That's me (Cynthia Graves) as drum major. Songs are: Grieg Medley, Greensleeves and Let It Be Me. This is the prelim contest. Video was from Mrs. Grigsby (RIP). My understanding is that a band director at RRHS threw out all of the videos from the 1980s and prior. So this may be the only copy of our show. ENJOY!