AHS band to compete at festival

By Donnie A. Lucas

The Ragin’ Red Band will compete Saturday at the Big Country Marching Festival at Wylie High School in Abilene.

The Albany band will take the field at 2:30 p.m., according to director  Will Vaughan. The public is invited to attend.

The band will be performing its contest show “Shine,” with music written by Luke McMillan and marching drill by Rodney Gurley of Lubbock.

“We put all the elements of the show together over the last couple of weeks,” Vaughan said. “The kids are doing great, but we have to keep working hard. Marching band requires a lot of commitment to details.”

The director said he is pleased with how quickly the band learned the second half of the show.

“Now we just need to get everyone to buy in to the same performance level as we get ready for contest,” he said.

The band will march at the UIL Marching Contest on Monday, Oct. 17, also at Wylie High School in Abilene. Albany will march at 2:45 p.m.

The band earned a Division I rating at both the Wylie festival and the UIL marching contest last year. The group followed up in the spring with Division I ratings in both concert and sight reading contests to win the first Sweepstakes Award in 40 years.

The band has the opportunity to advance to the area contest on Oct. 29 in Lubbock and hopefully qualify to move on to the state marching contest.

Class 2A bands have the opportunity to advance to state on even number years. However, due to the COVID pandemic, all classifications had the chance to get to the state contest last year. UIL has resumed the usual rotation of which classifications can advance to state this year.

Vaughan and his wife, Danna, who serves as an assistant director, are in their third year of guiding the band.