The early bird gets the awards...

Greetings, and welcome to 2012! This is the time of year of making resolutions, breaking resolutions and all kinds of other monumental decisions. But, perhaps most importantly, it’s the end of the college football “bowl season”, culminating with tonight’s BCS Championship between LSU and Alabama.

However, as much as I love college football and hate the wholly corrupt BCS system (that will likely be my only shot at them!), this post will have little to do with the games and will instead be focused on one of the “extracurricular” activities that go with them. And yes, although I haven’t mentioned it in the first two paragraphs, this is about Tooele County!

Tooele High School has a long storied tradition of excellence when it comes to their marching band. In many years, the activities of the band are followed more closely than those of the football team itself, for many reasons. This is one of those years.

To give you an idea of how popular this band is here in Tooele, this is a band that has practiced at six in the morning during the football season, marching up and down the residential streets of Tooele for decades. Yes, I said 6am, with no complaints from late risers! Well, there was one complaint this year from someone who had just moved here. She complained that 6am violated the Tooele City Noise ordinance that doesn’t allow loud noise before 7am. The Tooele City Council simply changed the ordinance to 6am. That’s what tradition is all about, in its best form.

So what does this have to do with college football? Very simple. The Tooele High School Band was selected to participate in the activities surrounding the Holiday Bowl in San Diego. 60 bandmembers participated in a parade, some competition and the halftime activities with 9 other bands from around the Country.

The band raised some $7500 in fundraisers, but each member still had to come up with another $580 to cover the cost of the trip, one that was called a once in a lifetime opportunity by many members of the band.

So, how did they do? Well, they rocked, returning home with over a dozen awards, including two first place awards in field marching and street marching. They also took awards for best drum major, best color guard, best marching, best percussion and best general effect. They also returned home to a City full of honking horns, blasting sirens and supportive businesses. Well done THS! You’ve done us proud.

On a similar note, I spoke with one of the County Commissioners this morning. It seems that there has been some complaining in Stansbury Park about the Stansbury High Band doing outdoor practice at 6am. I don’t know what the Commissioners will do, but based on the THS results, can an ordinance change be far behind?