It’s been a long, hard, winding road since 2019 for the Anderson High School Marching Highlanders.
That was the year the Marching Highlanders won the Indiana State Fair Band Day competition.
The next year looked promising for director Richard Geisler’s program. But then the COVID pandemic hit, wiping out the marching band season.
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In 2021, the Marching Highlanders were fully prepared to defend their 2019 crown. But COVID struck again. Some members of the band were exposed to the virus, and the band had to pull out of the state fair.
In 2022, ’23 and ’24, Geisler and his band worked overtime but fell just short of reaching the pinnacle.
But this year, against the odds, the Marching Highlanders — some of whom began their marching band career back in 2021 when COVID struck for a second time — were not to be denied.
As always, it was an arduous summer for the band. Through dozens upon dozens of hours of developing and then perfecting their “Scots and Soda” 1950s-themed routine, the band and color guard kept falling just short.
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The Marching Highlanders finished behind defending state fair champion Muncie in every 2025 competition, also trailing Kokomo (Band Day champs in 2022 and 2023) in one of the meets.
As Aug. 1 dawned, Muncie was a clear favorite to keep its Band Day crown. Even after AHS turned in a gorgeous performance in the day’s preliminary round, the Marching Highlanders found themselves trailing Muncie heading into the evening finals.
They couldn’t count on Muncie to falter; their arch-rival had not faltered all summer long. Anderson would have to turn in its best performance to reclaim the Band Day crown and its spot in state and local lore.
A combination of Anderson High, Highland and Madison Heights had won 15 championships, the most of any city — even Indianapolis. With the three high schools now combined into one, the onus of responsibility to carry on a community tradition of excellence on the track rests solely with the Marching Highlanders.
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After an inspirational talk from Geisler before taking the track the evening of Aug. 1, they did just that.
One judge called the AHS Band Day finals performance “flawless.”
“We had enough difficulty and complexity built into the show that it was going to take the season to bring it all together,” Geisler said a week later. “By the end of the season, our kids really perfected it. The evening show was our best of the season.”
The panel of judges rewarded the Marching Highlanders with an overall score of 92.85, just a little bit better than Muncie’s 91.963.
One blunder by a single band member, one sour note, one dropped flag or one failure to fully engage the audience could have dropped AHS to second place or even third below Kokomo (90.888).
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But the Marching Highlanders had come too far, had worked too hard and had invested too much to let that happen.
They seized the moment, claimed their record eighth Band Day trophy and secured their place in local and state history.
After all of that, there’s only one thing to say.
Bravo!