Marching bands from Porter and Veterans Memorial early college high schools are putting the finishing touches on their shows for this year’s 79th annual Pigskin Jubilee marching contest to be held Saturday at Bobby Morrow Stadium in San Benito.
The bands have been practicing the music and marching routines for Pigskin since July, and in halftime shows at home football games since August. Performing the whole show in front of family, friends, and most importantly judges, at Pigskin is the first step toward Area G competition a week later.
The Veterans Memorial program is called “From the Ground Up.”
“That’s kind of the whole premise. We’re just excited to be back and to have all the kids being in classes,” band director Elizabeth Stone said.
“Some of these kids coming into Veterans, from whatever middle school they went to, some of them had two years of online classes and only only one year of real in-school school. I’m proud to be a part of what the district did providing for the families and all they did, and so the show comes from that,” she said.
“Our show starts actually on the ground. They do some hand motions and they get up and they start moving and you know just the the physical aspect, and the music just revs up. …We have stairs and that’s to show we’re going forward, upward and onward. You know, its a struggle every day. There were things that were learned, things forgotten. I mean it’s been two years we were kind of shut down. …The kids are doing such a phenomenal job of coming back and doing what we do. We’re just very proud of them.”
Stone said the show is a musical expression of things the kids experienced during the pandemic.
“Our first movement, The Hero and the Saints, is actually the title of a video game. Our second piece is called A New World by Bjork and the last piece is called Seven Days by Sting.
“You’re like Oh wow, that’s the video game music and then if you’re familiar with Bjork, Oh that’s the New World that’s the new world after COVID. Then the third movement is seven days, like seven days of the week we just keep working,” she said.
“I mean it’s really a show of hope. We have staircases. We just want to keep these students pushing forward and to perform, to do their best and to be the best human beings possible to keep our communities and our world going in the right direction,” she said.
Porter calls its Pigskin show “Beyond Imagination.”
The whole concept is curiosity and self discovery, band director Oscar Onofre said.
“It talks about struggling through roadblocks, happy go lucky at the beginning, and then you start realizing there are feelings and challenges you’re facing,” he said.
“We open up with Pure Imagination. It’s the theme of Willy Wonka. We have clarinet soloist Liam Shio, who does a great job, doing Allegro from Symphony No 10 in E Minor by Dmitri Shostakovich. The third movement is Vienna Teng and the last one is Remembering the Future. That one comes from the Wait of the World by Steven Meleno,” he said.
“It inspires a sense of curiosity. It’s very inviting show, so its a sense of camaraderie. It starts with the soloists in middle of the field and then everyone slowly joins in and then it goes up to this really cool entrance,” Onofre said.
The 21 member Code Blue Color Guard plays a big part in the show, he added.
This year’s Pigskin will be the first presented without significant interference from COVID-19. The competition includes bands from about 40 schools beginning at 8 a.m. and continuing until 4 in the afternoon.
“They’ll rank all those bands. The top 12 get to advance to finals. Then there’s a second performance in the evening. They rank those 12 and the top three get medals. It’s a prestigious thing,” Onofre said. “In our school history, the last two times we’ve been able to go to finals, first time in school history and both times state alternate, back to back. In 2019 they took five to state. We were sixth and then in 2021 right after the pandemic same thing,” he said.
Both Onofre and Stone credited assistant band directors at their schools with doing the considerable work to make putting on the show possible. Stone credited Sam Rodriguez, the music the instrumental music advisor. “he has been amazing in helping the kids. Him and Fine Arts Administrator Mike Garcia. I don’t think we would be where we’re at if it wasn’t for them.
Garcia noted that band personnel open Brownsville Independent School Disrict high schools on July 18, the first day the University Interscholastic League allows band practice. Band students and their instructors work extra hours during October, often referred to as “Bandtober” because of all the competitions and halftime shows leading up to Pigskin.
Band personnel work 70 to 80-hour weeks during the month “and the kids likewise are trying to be their very best at each show. We’re very proud of that,” he said.
Both Porter and Veterans Memorial are 5-A schools, as are Lopez and Pace, meaning they can go only as far as the Area G competition this year, a state year for 6-A schools. The 6-A Pigskin contest is in Pharr. Hanna and Rivera are 6-A schools
