High School Band Section

As in most small-town papers, the sports section is a great place to get a lot of names in the paper. Stat boxes put a ton of information in a small amount of space, and coverage of games packs pages fuller than they sometimes should be. But where is the love for the pep band? The swing choir? The speech team? I remember high school band. I played French horn, but the only people who knew that were my family and the other families with kids in the band. No one else had any idea - certainly not the local newspaper. Although my title today is sports editor, I still have a soft spot in my heart for all the fine arts - band, choir, speech, one-act play, musical - as you may have guessed. I remember the work I put into those areas when I was in school. I remember the lack of recognition, and I think that’s pushed me to push for more fine arts coverage in our papers. We do a fine arts section each spring recognizing all those activities with group photos of bands, choirs, swing choirs, play casts, speech teams, art clubs - anything fine arts related that happens in our nine high schools. But we don’t stop there. The last couple years we’ve published pages recognizing the Seward High band. The package includes a story about the band’s marching show, results of the fall competitions, comments from the drum majors and sometimes section leaders, a breakdown from the band director and a list of the band members. It also includes action photos of the band (mostly taken at halftime of the school’s football games) and some photos from competitions. This year I went to the state marching competition in Lincoln for the first time. It was interesting to see the show from above. To that point, I’d only seen it from field level. The pages are sponsored by the Seward High Band Boosters, which gives that organization a chance to let people know what it’s about. This type of coverage won’t happen in the metro daily just down the road. It’s an area in which the hometown paper can, and should, excel. In future pages, we’re hoping to include more comments from students, again an area in which we should excel. It might be good to expand this type of coverage to the swing choir, which competes in the spring. We could get comments from students, the accompanying band and the director, include results and performance photos and see if the Friends of Choral Music want to get on board. Eat your heart out, metro dailies!