I've mentioned before that my kid is in her high school marching band. She's now a senior, and the last couple years have been ROUGH.
In 2019, the band finished #3 in the state in its division (bands with between 81-120 members) despite having only 80 members. It was really great.
In around February 2020, I agreed to take over as president of the band boosters (in part because the band director told the outgoing president that I was his first choice). Then COVID hit and, in June, the director told me he was leaving to take an identical position at a school closer to home. The ensuing year sucked HARD for a lot of reasons that I won't get into.
Fast forward and we're now down to a 60 member band, BUT the band FINALLY got to step on a field last night and do a performance. They did the first 2/3 of their field show at halftime of the school's football game. It was a little rough -- especially with some of the electronic equipment -- but they finally did it! First competition is Saturday.
Oh...and my kid has a solo (in the pic on the bottom, she's on the right giving me a dirty look)!