Bearden band joins Hogs on bowl trip
Posted on Monday, December 31, 2007
As Arkansans settle into their couches and recliners for the AT&T Cotton Bowl Classic on New Year’s Day, the Bearden High School band members will be practicing warm-up scales, straightening uniforms, calming their nerves and removing saliva from their instruments in preparation for the biggest halftime show they’ve ever played.
Bearden, a small high school in south Arkansas, about 15 miles northeast of Camden, was among 17 high school bands — the only one from Arkansas — invited to the three-day Cotton Bowl Music Festival. The festival ends with the game between Arkansas and Missouri on Tuesday.
“It’s going to be very exciting, because we’re going to be the only Arkansas [high school ] band and because Arkansas is playing in the Cotton Bowl,” said Kadarrius Green, an eighthgrade trombone player.
The festival will consist of concert band, jazz band and field show competitions, the Comerica Bank New Year’s Parade through downtown Dallas, and the nationally televised pageantry performances during the Cotton Bowl game.
Of those events, the Bearden band will compete in the field show competition, march in the parade, and perform during the pregame and halftime shows along with 16 other high school bands.
The Cotton Bowl has averaged an attendance of 71, 324 since 2000. And about 65, 000 spectators are expected at the 1. 5-mile parade, said Layne Johnson, whose company, Layne Johnson and Associates, pro- duces the festival.
Earlier this month, Bearden band members played for their largest crowd yet — 5, 284 — at the school’s football game against Mount Ida in the Class 2 A state championship at War Memorial Stadium. Bearden lost the game.
“It makes us feel good, knowing that other people from Arkansas will be there,” said Chris Hartley, a senior trumpet player. “But I don’t think [the size of the crowd ] will affect us a lot, because we had a big game in Little Rock at War Memorial.”
However, Bearden’s band director, A. R. Worthen, isn’t so sure.
“Reality hasn’t set in, and I don’t think it will until we get to Dallas,” Worthen said before they left on Saturday. “We have some kids that have never seen a big city, and it will probably be a sobering shock to them.”
Bearden’s 41-member band is made up of students in grades eight through 12, though three seventh-graders also will be playing with the band.
Bearden was selected from a list of recommended schools, though neither Johnson nor Worthen is sure who made the recommendation.
“I don’t know how it came about, and I didn’t investigate it, because it didn’t matter,” Worthen said excitedly.
During the field show competition, the band will be playing a “medley of Motown magic,” Worthen said, consisting of four songs: “You Keep Me Hanging On,” by The Supremes; “My Girl,” by The Temptations; “Heard It Through the Grapevine,” by Marvin Gaye; and “I’ll Be There,” by the Jackson Five.
“We’ve been having a lot of practices and been working hard,” Hartley said. “A lot early in the morning and at night.”
Through fundraisers and donations from individuals and businesses in Bearden, Fordyce, Camden and El Dorado, the band has raised $ 21, 000 for its trip.
“We’ve been working on this since August,” Worthen said. “We had barbecue dinners and all types of fundraisers, selling candy and Krispy Kreme doughnuts by the truckload.”
The New Year’s parade can be seen live at 2 p. m. today at www. myfoxdfw. com. The Cotton Bowl game will be shown on Fox network at 10 a. m. Tuesday.
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