BAND EVENT A TRADITION IN JACKSON

JACKSON - About 21 high school marching bands and nearly 1,500 band performers are expected to participate in the 48th annual Southeast Missouri Marching Band Festival Tuesday in Jackson.

The event, which dates back to World War II, is sponsored by the Southeast Missouri Band Association and hosted each October by Jackson High School.

"The marching band festival is one of the biggest events of the school year for the band students," said Nick Leist, director of music at Jackson High School. "First, because it's lots of fun and the kids get to meet a lot of other band members; and second, because it's strictly a non-competitive event. There is no judging, no ratings, no trophies. It's simply an afternoon and evening of fun for the students and good entertainment for the public during the evening band concert.

"This is the only chance many of the smaller bands will have to perform for an audience of this size because they cannot compete in the larger contests."

The festival begins at 1:30 p.m. when the 21 high school bands march through the streets of Jackson. Following the parade, the bands will converge on the Jackson High School football field to practice the rest of the afternoon for their evening show.

The program will begin at 6:30 p.m., in the stadium. The gates will open at 5:30 p.m. Tickets at the gate are $2 for adults and $1 for students.

"Each band will present their own program of music and maneuvers on the field during the evening festival. The finale will be a program of special music performed by the combined massed band of some 1,500 bandspeople," Leist explained. "Because this is a presidential election year, we've selected special music appropriate for the presidential campaign."

The festival will open with the playing and singing of "America, the Beautiful," and conclude with the playing of the national anthem.

According to Leist, the first band festival was held in Jackson in October 1944, at the height of World War II, when then-Jackson High School band director, the late LeRoy Mason, and high school band directors from Sikeston, Wardell, Dexter, Poplar Bluff, Charleston, Perryville and Jackson, decided to have an event in which all area high schools, large and small, could participate on a non-competitive basis.

In 1945, the Southeast Missouri Band Association was formed to coordinate the festival. That same year, five more high schools were added to the list of those participating in the band festival: Bragg City, Kennett, Chaffee, Lilbourn, and Cape Girardeau Central High School.

Leist said the band festival continued to be held in Jackson until 1960. "At that point, the festival had grown so large because of additional bands that our facility could not hold all of them. The association decided to split the festival into two locations, one at Jackson in the northern region, and a southern location, that was to be hosted by a different high school each year," he said. "In the late 1970s, the band festival become so popular with high schools all over Southeast Missouri, the association was again forced to split it up. This time, they decided to hold band festivals at four different sites in this area, and make those sites permanent."

Today, Jackson High School plays host to the central region band festival, while Perryville is host to the northern regional band festival. The southern regional band festival is held at Poplar Bluff High School, and the Bootheel regional festival is hosted by Kennett High School. Of the four festivals, the Jackson festival is the largest because of the close proximity of several larger high school bands, Leist said.

"Usually, the four band festivals are all held on the same night, the first Tuesday in October. However, this year, the Jackson and Perryville festivals will be held on Oct. 6. The Kennett and Poplar Bluff band festivals will be held the following week, on Oct. 13," he said.

For many years, the band festival was a day-long event. But Leist said the band directors felt the event could be compressed into an afternoon and evening program, so students would not miss an entire day of school.

Besides providing area band students the opportunity to come together in a non-competitive event, Leist said the band festival also gives band students in smaller high schools without football programs an opportunity to perform on a football field.

"I remember LeRoy Mason once remarked - after he became director of the Golden Eagles - that many students from the smaller high schools in the region who were entering the Golden Eagles Marching Band had never marched or performed on a football field until they got to Southeast Missouri State University," Leist recalled. "That's another reason why the band festivals are so important in this part of the state."

Preparing for an event with nearly 1,500 participants, plus another 2,000 spectators, requires a lot of advance logistical planning, Leist said. "The actual planning for next week's band festival actually began last summer when the band directors set down to plan the program, music, and maneuvers," said Leist. "We also work very closely with the Jackson Police Department because we will have the population equivalent of a small town converging in Jackson in a matter of only a few hours. Not counting the private cars that will be parked, we will have at least 40-50 school buses that must find their way to the high school campus and be parked. For the evening band concert, there are more cars driven by parents of band students, plus members of the public who are attending the festival."

In addition to the police department, Leist said the high school receives strong support from the Jackson Rotary Club, whose members have been taking tickets at the evening festival for over 30 years, the Jackson Band Boosters Club members and parents, and school administrators, including High School Principal Vernon Huck.