Winter Winds Go On Strike at Norwell

Woodlan Winter Winds began their competition season this past Saturday, February 11th. These students have been hard at work preparing their show since the first week of December. Over the last few weeks of practice, the show has really come together and taken shape. Most of the students agree that this year’s theme and music are really enjoyable and they are having a great time this season.

The 2023 Winter Winds Crew

Back Row (L-R): Reileigh Lyst, Keiran Benz, Calvin Brown, Ean Schindler, Colton Mosure, Bella Harber, Braedon Miller, Sam Bandor, Korbin Lipscomb, Abigail Thomas, Josiah Thomas, Camdyn Garrison, Ryan Coomer, Alex Raby, Rogan Thiele, Robert Kimpel

Middle Row (L-R): Caitlyn Walter, Ava McAlexander, Delaney Crilly, Riley Saalfrank, Emmalee Hoot

Front Row (L-R): Chloe Rorick, Jeremiah Bryan, Hunter Bufink, Bailey Hearne, Wyatt Oldfield

Goofing around before the photo shoot

The 2023 Winter Winds Staff: Nathan Spellman, Cody Groves, Sean Burton, Derick Herschberger, Eli Neeley

Thursday night, the students had a dress rehearsal and received their newspaper bags!

Saturday morning, students arrived at school at 7:30 to start their morning practice. They worked through some trouble areas that needed addressed and felt pretty confident about their readiness for competition. After loading the equipment into the trailer, they enjoyed a lunch of hot dogs, macaroni and cheese, fresh fruit, chips, gogurts, and cookies. They loaded into their bus and made their way to Norwell High School.

Saturday morning rehearsals

After arriving at Norwell, the students unloaded the trailers and changed into their uniforms. At warm-ups, they sounded incredible and brought a lot of energy. Just before taking the floor for competition, first-performance nerves and jitters settled in for many of the students. There was a flurry of activity in setting up the props and we all realized we needed to be better organized in our setup for next week to make things run more smoothly.

Alex, Ava, and Bella

Delaney, Alex, Ava, Bella, Caitlyn, Reileigh

Colton, Braedon, Rogan, Camdyn, and Sam

The students took the floor for competition and did a great job overall, despite some struggles with losing power on some of the electronics. They recovered quickly but many students were disappointed in the overall performance. After the performance, there was again some flurry of activity to get the props off the floor. Unfortunately, several props suffered some damage and will require repairs before next weekend. Students loaded the trailers and many changed out of their uniforms and hurried back to watch other bands perform.

At the awards ceremony, Woodlan Winter Winds finished in fourth place out of the five competing groups in their class. Many students felt that placement was fair given their troubles with equipment and struggles in their performance. The results in Winds Scholastic A Class were:

1. Kokomo Indoor Winds

2. Lake Central Winds

3. Washington Winds

4. Woodlan Winter Winds

5. Clay City Winter Winds

This was a great first run and gave the students the ability to worth through their first-performance nerves and jitters. This week, the students are working hard to clean up trouble areas, re-work parts of the show that didn’t quite work well, and learn the closer to the show.

Woodlan Winter Winds will be competing again this upcoming Saturday, February 18th at Plainfield High School, outside Indianapolis. Winds Scholastic A Class will begin at 12:00pm. Woodlan will be competing against Owen Valley Indoor, Kokomo Indoor Winds, Lake Central Winds, Ben Davis Winter Winds, Washington Winds, and Clay City Winter Winds. Woodlan will compete at 12:45pm. The last group to compete in Scholastic Class A performs at 12:54pm. Awards will not be held until 4:57pm. We’re looking forward to another great weekend of competition!

Woodlan Winter Guard has the weekend off and will return to competition on February 25th at Carroll High School.