Garrettsville – The James A. Garfield Marching Pride has been having a spring banquet since the year 2000 and this year was no exception, a great evening of awards and recognition…and some pretty fair food, prepared by Guido’s Catering and presented through the good offices of Marianne Norris and Dorothy Sheller. And it was another occasion where rank has its privileges—the seniors got to go first through the buffet line. Faculty and administration got demoted to coming through last.The Middle School jazz band, the Jammin’ G-Men and the High School jazz band, the Big Swing Machine, provided music for the preliminary “meet-n-greet” time but everyone got to the gold-covered tables with their gold-colored plates in time to enjoy the meal…and the cakes!
The awards table was full of items to be handed out—blankets, medals, patches, letters, caps, pins, umbrellas, fancy bags with mysterious contents. The dining tables were full of band members, parents, grandparents, siblings and even some miscellaneous alumni band people. The awards went out after the band directors, Theo Cebulla and Joe Gaither, took a few moments thanking the many booster members who had made such great contributions to making 2013-2014such a great year for the Marching Pride. The Mesdames Curry, Crawford, Everett, Hoffman and Jones headed up the Band Boosters operations for such necessary considerations as chaperonage, travel, uniform maintenance and fund-raising.
National award winners were announced : Junior Arion Service—Nick Crawford, Semper Fidelis—Dan Anders, Patrick S. Gilmore—Andy Lininger, John Philip Sousa—Michael Ebie. The local Leanne Brosius-Osbourne Scholarship winner will be announced at the annual honors ceremonies on May 28.
The photo-ops were many and varied, as were the images presented in the senior video show and individual awards. The 2013-2014 band officers were recognized and officers for 2014-2015 were announced. The evening’s program detailed the activities throughout the year and the seniors gave a behind-the-scenes look at very many of them .
And they’re ready to do it all again next year.
Go, G-Men!
