Braden River High marching band claims state 2A title

Leading up to the preliminaries of the state Florida Marching Band Championships, Cliff Dawson had his marching band students participate in a calming exercise. 

Dawson, the director of Braden River High School's Marching Band of Pirates, said he could tell the students were nervous going into the Nov. 16 competition. 

Dawson said the band had some good rehearsals but a few shaky moments and they didn't seem to be sure they would perform well at the competition.

Dawson had his students close their eyes and visualize their entire show, imagining what it felt like to perform correctly and to see people applauding. 

Everything they had envisioned became a reality. 

Not only did the Marching Band of Pirates have a successful performance in the preliminaries that secured the band a spot in the finals, but the Pirates performed even better in the finals, winning the Division 2A state championship.

"The first performance and second performance just kept getting better, so I couldn't be more proud of the kids," Dawson said. 

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Winning the state championship was validation of the band's ability and hard work, Dawson said. 

"It's been such a crazy year with all of the challenges," he said. "We as a staff, boosters and an organization just decided we weren't going to give up. It was validation of the extra effort we put in to make it happen ... that it all paid off."

The Parrish Community High School's Pride of Parrish Marching Band also had validation as the band placed fourth overall in the Division 2A state championship. 

Lakewood Ranch High School's Marching Mustangs did not qualify for finals.

Ron Lambert, the director of Parrish's marching band, said placing fourth was a culmination of hard work, resilience and effort. 

The band was founded four years ago and has placed in the finals of the Florida Marching Band Championships for the third year in a row. 

"We were the little band that could because the other four bands in our class are storied programs that have been class champions in (division) 5A, 4A and 3A multiple times," Lambert said. "It was four giant programs and then little Parrish, so I'm very proud to have achieved what we did."

After placing fourth in preliminaries out of 10 bands, Lambert said the Pride of Parrish Marching Band scored four points higher in the finals and were .3 away from third place after the finals.

"We did that in a matter of hours," he said. "That's all will and determination."

Dawson said Braden River's victory showed the buy-in from the students, families and everyone involved in the program. 

After it was announced that Braden River won the state title, Dawson said the students were in a daze. They were emotionally and physically exhausted. 

"You could just tell there was nothing left they could do to even be excited," he said. "Obviously they're pleased and happy about all of it. I think over the next couple of days it's going to settle in for them, and they're going to be quite a bit happier."

This is the first state championship Braden River has won since the band won the Division 3A state championship in 2019, which was its third consecutive state title. 

The COVID-19 pandemic left the band in recovery mode, but Dawson said the program has been getting a little better each year since 2020. 

"The last time we had a group of kids that didn't have any kind of success like this was, to me, the start of the three-peat," Dawson said. "It's nice to be back and know we didn't lose that potential for greatness and excellence in the program and we can get back to having that around for the students, the program and the school."

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The fine performances came despite both bands losing significant rehearsal time due to hurricanes. 

Parrish's band had a successful start to the season with a two-week band camp, but then Hurricane Debby and the ensuing bad weather caused the band to not have a full outdoor rehearsal until mid-September. 

Then Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton caused the band to lose even more rehearsal time, including a Saturday mini camp, that would have been an eight-hour rehearsal, Lambert said. 

Lambert said placing fourth after all the challenges says a lot about the students, the program and the culture former band director Kendall Carrier put in place when he started the program four years ago. 

Now the band members at Parrish are hungry for more, Lambert said. 

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Looking into next year's marching season, Lambert said he wants to continue to build on the culture of the program and grow in numbers. The marching band had 58 members this year.

Lambert said there are students whose siblings were his former students when he was director at Lakewood Ranch High School, and half of the marching band's staff are former students. They all are aware of the family culture of excellence and inclusion Lambert strives to have for each of his bands. 

"People want to be in our band room. People want to be on our boosters. They want to be involved because it's a safe and positive place. We work hard," he said. 

Dawson said in the coming years, he has plans for the Marching Band of Pirates to explore other competition circuits, even competing outside of Florida. He said the dream competition would be the Bands of America Grand National Championship, which drew 113 bands to this year's championship in Indianapolis, Indiana. 

"We want to look to start competing in a different circuit that has better competition, better venues, high levels of expectations and excellence," Dawson said. "That's our goal. That's our mission."