After a down year in 2023-24, Odessa High School Director of Bands Sonia Campos is encouraged by the interest and turnout she’s seeing this year. She also has new directors on board to bring a fresh set of eyes to the program.
Campos said she’s consistently seeing about 110 students and expects about 200 all together with the color guard.
“It’s much better than last year,” Campos said.
She said that’s a product of getting out to the middle schools, letting the program be known and letting musicians know they’re welcome to join.
“The success we have encountered is a credit to our incredible middle school band directors that work in the trenches each day to prepare our students to find success at the high school level. All the credit to them. (I’m) grateful for an incredible team!” Campos added.
They have seen a lot of retention rate between middle and high school.
“We’re consistently growing. We have a really great leadership team this year. They’re doing a heck of a job meeting our students. We have a very young group. Lots of them are incoming ninth graders,” she added.
She noted that it’s a promising sign for the band program and getting Ector College Prep back into Ector County ISD is also going to help. Ector was part of the district but run by Third Future Schools, a charter school network, brought in to turn the campus around.
Corey Fair and Michael Simpson are the two new assistant band directors. Fair is a percussion specialist and Simpson is a woodwind specialist.
Campos said the kids are working really hard and she couldn’t be more proud of the progress they’ve made throughout the summer camp.
“We just had two 13-hour days, and we had 100% attendance in most of our sections,” she added. “That hasn’t happened since I’ve been here, so it’s just a really exciting time to be at Odessa High School.”
The student leadership team also has been incredible. The overarching theme this year for leadership is focus.
“That’s exactly what they’ve been doing, just having really focused, intentional and feedback-focused practices and rehearsals providing a really great atmosphere for learning. I couldn’t ask for a better team and it starts off with our drum majors. We have Elijah Sandate, who is our head drum major and he’s just incredible. This young man has really grown and is really stepping up and being a great leader. He’s a senior for us. We’re truly going to miss him, but we’re really enjoying his senior year,” Campos said.
This year’s marching show is called “I Am …” The first show will be at the OHS-Amarillo game Aug. 29.
“The overarching theme is emotions, so we’re going to start off with joy. Joy is the overarching theme for our marching show this year. We’re going to have a little bit of anger in some of the music. You’ll hear it in some of our music in the second movement and then going back to hope and love in the third movement, and then wrapping back around to excitement and the happiness of living to finish it off,” Campos said.
It was an idea she had for the last couple of years. She made it a reality with her team and hired some really great drill writers and music arrangers.
“They’re doing a heck of a job providing pretty great production for us. … Hopefully, we can bring it to life,” Campos added.
On a recent Wednesday, the band was practicing marching techniques.
“We’re really focused on fundamentals because we know that’s what makes great bands, so if we can build up the fundamentals they’re going to be able to do anything that we ask them to do,” Campos said.
Elijah Sandate, a senior head drum major, and Shijay Sivakumar, a junior band captain and clarinet section leader, are feeling good about the band this year. They have both been in band since sixth grade.
“The people are nice. The marching is pretty good. I’m excited about that,” Sandate said.
He added that he’s looking forward where all the positive aspects lead to as they get into marching season.
“I’m seeing a lot of improvement day by day,” Sivakumar said. “Each day, even though we’re not perfect yet, we’re getting better every single rep.”
Both said all the hard work and time is worth it.
“You get really close to the people here, so you make a lot of new friends. … It teaches you basic values of hard work and dedication,” Sivakumar said.
Sandate said it takes up a lot of his free time.
“But I feel like in the end it’s worth it,” he added.
The increase in numbers for the band is also exciting.
“I’m excited to put on a performance for the community” and show everybody what the OHS Broncho Band can do,” Sandate said.
