by
Jocelyn Dolbow
Winter at our high school means basketball, cheering and chess. But there is one important thing missing…we also have a morning jazz band, a chorus and an afternoon jazz band. Both the morning jazz band and chorus made it to states! On Friday March 18, I had the pleasure of going with the band kids, along with two other students and English teacher Lee Lehto to go support our school.
This year, the Maine State Jazz Festival was at MDI High School, whereas last year, it was in South Portland. We got wristbands and unloaded our bus. We went inside the school, where they had our rooms mixed up. We went to a room with our equipment, where we got ready. We got called everything from Bonny Eagle, Cheverus and Westbrook. We kept telling them, “We are Deer Isle-Stonington.” We went to the warm-up room to, well, warm up. We went to the band room, where we performed three songs. We started out rough, with flute problems, but got everything fixed and performed the best we could.
I stayed with Ms. Lehto and watched GSA perform. Island resident Anne Ames played her trumpet and did well. We had some time to spare after lunch to enjoy the nice sunny day before the awards at two. We met in the MDI gym for the awards ceremony. There were four groups: 1, 2, 3, 4, but the order went 2, 3, 1, missing 4 all together. We waited patiently to see if we got any awards.
GSA came in first place in our division. We didn’t win any awards, but got an 82 out of a 100. Amy Bolton and Scott Roy received award certificates for their solos. Our school did very well. It has been since the early 1990s since DIS has made it to states for band. They made it last year and again this year. Let’s see if we can make it a trend and make it to states again next year!
