Area high school bands enter big stage to perform at UW-L football’s home opener

For high school students in the marching band, Saturday has to be one of the highlighted events — a college football halftime show.

It’s the 8th Annual High School Band Day. Seven area high schools will join with the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Screamin’ Eagles marching band to perform at halftime at Memorial Field of the UW-La Crosse-Dickinson football game.

“It’s an opportunity for students to come to a college football game, hangout, rehearse with a college marching band,” UW-L band director Tammy Fisher said. “Some of these schools are kind of small, so maybe a group of 30-40 kids gets to be on the field with 500.”

As exciting an opportunity as it is for those students, Fisher notes it’s also an eye-opening experience for their futures.

“They’ll realize there are opportunities for them to keep playing music and to be involved,” Fisher said. “Preferably, we want them to come to La Crosse but, ultimately, we just want them to know they can continue their music career once they go off to college.”

The group will play five songs together at halftime and two more before kickoff including the Star Spangled Banner.

The bands will also rehearse together for about two hours prior to the game.

The schools involved include Central, Logan, Bangor, Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau, Tomah and Prairie du Chien.