News Briefs 10/4

District Marching Band Festival
Each of the five schools’ Marching Bands in SMSD are coming together for the district marching festival on Oct. 4, at 7 p.m. at the South Stadium. East’s theme this year is Stevie Wonder, and they have rehearsed four of his songs for their portion of the show.

Band teacher Kim Harrison says that this festival is one of the most important things they do during the year.
“All of the students in the Shawnee Mission bands, they know students from the other schools that play their instruments,” Harrison said. “I think that the Shawnee Mission festival is more important than the competitive festival because the kids want to do good in front of their friends and their peers.”
Sophomore Abby Scott says she is excited to see the other schools’ marching and hear their sound this year, but says she’s also anxious to play.

“For me, band it’s just having a lot of fun with the drum line kids and getting to play together,” Scott said.
Harrison says the festival is a way to gauge how the year is going to go.

Musical Auditions
This fall the school musical will be Bye Bye Birdie. Auditions for the musical will be Oct. 10 in the auditorium. The play centers around a teenage heart-throb who has been drafted for the army. His agent has selected one teenage girl to receive a “goodbye kiss” from him.

Fine arts teachers Ken Foley, Brian Cappello and Tom DeFeo will be directing the musical.
Junior Max Duncan plans to audition and says that even though he was part of “Bye Bye Birdie” back in middle school, he is excited to see how this year’s production will be different.

Singing “I Can’t Help Falling in Love,” by Elvis Presley for the audition, Duncan says he’s nervous, but hopeful that those nerves will turn into energy that he can use to his advantage.

“I think the waiting—like when two people are before you, and you are just waiting to go in is the worst,” Duncan said. “But it’s fine once you start singing.”

Each student planning to audition should prepare 16 bars of a Broadway song, bring a copy of the sheet music and be prepared to sing the entire song.

College Clinic
To gain information about college admissions, programs and scholarship opportunities—SM East is hosting the 49th annual College Clinic Wednesday, Oct. 12. Over 200 representatives will be scattered among the school in the cafeteria, gyms and classrooms to answer questions and guide students and parents through the early stages of the college process.

From campus life and academics, to how much it cost, how big the school is and the majors/activities they offer—students can get a head start on planning.

“It gives you the opportunity to collect a lot of information about the variety of colleges and universities that you have an option to attend,” principal Karl Krawitz said.

Junior Samie Fetzer plans on attending the clinic with her parents and says she hopes to learn more about each individual college that she has in mind. She thinks that it’s important for all students in each grade level to attend.

“You learn about a lot of colleges you normally wouldn’t have learned about,” Fetzer said.