White Co. Marching Band Wins 1st Place At Outback Bowl Parade Competition

The White County High School Warrior Marching Band won first place in the Outback Bowl parade competition.

Director Roger Mills said that his students performed in a mile-long parade on the day before the game with five other bands. He said that there were two major highlights from the trip.

“The kids just loved the crowd interaction and how many people were there,” Mills said. “It was just absolutely packed with people. And then the other one was just getting an opportunity which was just getting to step onto an NFL field and play at a college half-time. That was a highlight for a lot of them as well.”

Mills said that the band also received second place in the “crowd-pleaser competition.” He said that judges evaluated the bands on specific criteria for the overall competition, as well as crowd hype for the crowd-pleaser competition.

Mills said that the hardest part of the process was raising the funds for the trip. He said that it was the help of the Sparta and White County communities that made it possible.

“Lot of donations helped us out to pay for charter buses to get us down there,” Mills said. “I don’t think school buses would have made it all the way down to Tampa. And just logistically setting it u our band parents and boosters were an incredible help through the entire process just organizing it. Everything from uniforms being in good shape to helping pack up buses and chaperoning and really gave me an opportunity to focus on the music and the marching and the performance.”