Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Marching Dragons have faced multiple challenges this year. From being split into three different class periods to ensure social distancing and having remote learners play the instruments through Zoom. In addition to this, the band isn’t able to attend the annual Southern Plains Marching Festival in Andover.

Band director Cooper Neil continues to remain positive despite the challenges.

“I think that 2020 has really taught me to enjoy the things we currently have rather than the things we want or that we perceive,” Neil said.

Despite the challenges Neil encounters on a daily basis, remaining optimistic has guided him through his lesson plans, ideas and has helped him knowing what to do along with when the right time to do it is.

“[Middle school band director and PHS assistant band director] Mr. Reimer and I have really had to revamp our curriculums not just to make our curriculum work in this current timeline, but to make our curriculum more well-rounded, so that the things we do now will be things that we continue to improve on,” Neil said. “But in a way it hasn’t been super challenging thanks to our wonderful counselors at PHS who worked hard to get all the things I needed done and make sure all my remote learners were put into one class period.”

Due to the global pandemic, there have been many changes to the way the band does things. They cover the openings on their instruments to make sure no condensation, saliva or any other germs can come out while playing.

“It definitely is a barrier to the sound, but also I think as an added bonus we have a lot of students who are hyper aware of what they need to do to get their sound out and when the coverings do come off,” Neil said. “I think we will have seen a huge improvement in our tone quality as an ensemble.”

Mellophone player senior Genevieve Allison feels she is missing out on the full experience of band. Since the band has been split up into three classes, the Marching Dragons only play together Tuesdays and Thursdays at 7 am.

“I think this pandemic has affected the band a lot. Usually early morning rehearsals would last until the end of first hour because we would usually have band as our first hour. That’s not the case now because the band is now split into three separate classes,” Allison said. “Now I’m missing a lot of the marching band experience because I’m missing an hour or so of rehearsal.”

For percussionist section leader senior Josh Ortolani, not being able to attend band camp and being a remote learner was challenging.

“I’d say the main thing for me is that I don’t get as much time to practice with the whole band. Also I feel like it affected the repertoire that Mr. Neil chose for our show, in that it is a little bit more simple, cut and dry. We only marched one of our songs on the field and it’s a very simple drill,” Ortolani said. “We didn’t have band camp which affects freshmen and their band experience since they’re only learning some of the basics of marching band.”

Throughout the chaos that is COVID-19, the Marching Dragons are breaking through by wearing masks, social distancing and focusing on what we have in the present.

“If we continue to do things right,” Neil said. “We will eventually see a positive change.”