STATE FAIR — History was made for Eastern Hancock High School as The Eastern Hancock Royal Regiment placed fourth in its division and 23rd overall at the Indiana State Fair’s Band Day — their highest placement in recent history.
Director of Bands and Music Technology Adam Eaton shared that he and the staff he works with wanted to do something a little different for this year’s performance than previous performances, which were based on poems.
“We landed on this idea of something revolving around technology and overusage of it,” Eaton said.
This year’s show was themed Reboot, a timeline around technology, which showed the discovery, captivation and use of technology and then an ending of simplicity — stepping away from technology.
Eastern Hancock first participated in the State Fair’s Band Day back in 1964 and has been involved consecutively since 2014.
This year, 35 students participated in Band Day with Kayla Jackson as the drum major. Their performance took place right after their lunch break, the first to perform in their group. Overall, there were 37 bands participating in the 2023 State Fair Band Day.
According to a recent post shared on their Facebook page, The Eastern Hancock Royal Regiment improved nine points from its score at Anderson, four points since their personal best — which was set in 2017 — and placed 23rd overall, the highest in Eastern Hancock State Band Day history.
Eastern Hancock High School Principal Adam Barton watched the performance this past weekend and said he was very proud of the students’ hard work.
“I thought the performance was very impressive, and it’s just neat to see them have that opportunity to perform in front of a big crowd after all the work they’ve put in the last couple of weeks in preparation,” Barton said.
Eaton shared that, compared to other bands they compete with, Eastern Hancock has a shorter season. Pre-camp, music-only rehearsals started back in June, but the last two full weeks of July is band camp, with only a few rehearsals outside of the two-week camp.
“I want to place all the recognition on the kids,” Eaton said. “The kids have worked so hard, and two weeks of extremely hot days – we had some rain and thunder thrown in there – and in such a short period of time, that fact that they could put a whole marching band show together, perform it and score as well as they did is just an incredible feat for them.”
