Band awards make Alamo Bowl memorable

The Columbus High School band is in San Antonio to perform in the halftime show of the Alamo Bowl. Dispatches from the trip are appearing in The Telegram.

SAN ANTONIO -- I am Megan Riley, and I am a junior at Columbus High and a snare drummer on the drumline.

The morning started off with a delicious breakfast at the hotel at 8 o’clock. At 9 o’clock we loaded up on the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria (the names of our buses) and headed off to a local high school where the Symphonic Band performed at a judged festival.

After the performance, we headed to Sea World.

After arriving at Sea World, the fatigue felt by most of the band kids instantly vanished. We got to watch Shamu perform, and even though my friends and I were in the splash zone, we were lucky to make it out of the Shamu Theatre completely dry.

We also were able to watch acrobats and dolphins perform together as well as the sea lions. After getting completely soaked on the Rio Loco ride, we all loaded back onto the buses to head back to the hotel to get ready for the dinner and awards banquet.

After spending 5 1/2 hours at Sea World, we got dressed up and headed to the San Antonio Convention Center for our awards dinner. We received the awards for best drumline, drum major and auxiliary as well as the awards for best marching and maneuvering, music execution and first in our class.

After dinner, the students from all of the eight participating bands headed onto the dance floor where they stayed until it was time for them to leave.

After pulling up to the hotel at about 10:30 p.m., we headed up to our rooms to pack up our suitcases. If they were anything like my roommates and mine it may take awhile.

Hopefully, we get them packed so they can be loaded tomorrow at 6:30 a.m. before we head off to the San Antonio River Walk and enjoy one final day here in the warm weather before we have to head back to cold Columbus.