Los Lunas High School Tigers marching band ends season on a high note

LOS LUNAS — Long days of practice and a recent rebuild of the program has paid off for Los Lunas High School’s Tigers Marching Band which is celebrating a successful season of hard work and passionate performances.

“Overall, we had a successful season in an award-sense, but really we look at it as the band has come so far in the last four years,” said Mariko McWhorter, LLHS marching band director.

McWhorter said the class had 113 students prior to the pandemic, one of the largest cohorts they have had, but all that came tumbling down in 2020.

“When we got back from COVID, we had 36 kids,” McWhorter recalled. “So it was definitely like a shock, and I had to really reset my thinking knowing that a good majority of them never had marched.”

Since then, the program has been steadily rebuilt and has grown both in numbers and in skill.

“We had five solid weekends of festivals and competitions (this season),” she said. “This year, we had 85 students, and we’ve been able to increase the difficulty of the music that we choose and also vary the choreography that the kids get to do on the field.”

In October, LLHS marching band placed first in their class at the New Mexico Pageant of Bands competition in Albuquerque. They also scored some individual awards, including outstanding brass, outstanding wood winds and also won the People’s Choice Award.

“They have judges that adjudicate music aspects specifically, like how they play as a whole group and how they play individually. They also have a general effect judge and a set of judges that are specifically for the visual aspect of it,” said McWhorter.

They also did well in the state-wide Zia Marching Band Fiesta competition, and placed third overall at a regional competition in Arizona. At the New Mexico Tournament of Bands in Las Cruces, they took second in their class and were recognized for outstanding percussion.

“They’re composed of grades nine through 12, and more than half of them are ninth and 10th graders, so for them to achieve that much is really great of them,” said McWhorter.

The band director and some of her students said their last performance of their 2024 program “Dreams Through the Eyes of an Artist” in Las Cruces was their favorite.

“This was definitely the most advanced show I’ve ever been a part of, so I’m definitely glad I was a part of it this year. The final product was really fun to see and do,” said LLHS senior and head drum major Jaron Jolly.

While being in marching band has helped him to hone his skills as a musician, LLHS senior Ryan McKinney said it has also taught him a lot about teamwork, leadership and discipline.

“We all have passion for it and really care about what we were doing,” said LLHS junior Cruz Romero.

He believes their success this season is due to a lot of “hard work, dedication and trust in our teachers and each other.”

McWhorter explained that there is a lot of time, work and dedication that goes into marching band and they work on the same music and the movements from the end of July to the beginning of November, so challenging the students and keeping them motivated is crucial.

“What we try to teach as much as possible here is you can have fun, but you can also have fun while having a common goal,” said marching band assistant director Samantha Rice. “I think when we started achieving our goals, and they saw that other people appreciated what they were doing, it made it fun for them because they knew that if they worked hard, then they would get something out of it.”

McWhorter said what she appreciates most about marching band is all the creativity and teamwork involved and seeing the student’s light up when they know that they played really well.

“There’s so many aspects to marching band,” said McWhorter. “It’s leadership building, it’s committing to something, it’s time management, it’s physicality … it’s being a part of something that’s bigger than themselves and really pushing these kids to their limits and showing them that there is so much more that they can truly achieve.”