By Yasmine Jason, Red River High School Band Director

This past weekend, I took ten students to Tioga High School to audition for our District Honor Band. They were Angel Baird, Bobby White, Shantwaine Lewis, Justin Johnson, James Putek, Zachary Riolo, Clement Jones, Antwaine Lewis, Steven Williams and Ashton Smith.

Honor Band is when Band Directors from different parishes select their most outstanding players to audition against others from different schools. The top ranked students then form a super ensemble, which we call Honor Band. For our district, these students came from Rapides, Grant, Winn, Avoyelles, Sabine and Red River Parishes.

I am very excited to announce that our very own James Putek not only was selected, but he had the highest audition score for Euphonium in District 2! He will now advance to All State Competition, which put students all over the state of Louisiana against each other to see who is the best instrumentalist in the state. We have NEVER had a student qualify for All State Band before. James Putek made Red River History this weekend.

This is a TREMENDOUS achievement and I am amazingly proud of all the students that auditioned and especially proud of James’ accomplishment. His next audition will be October 14th and hopefully he’ll make it to the final round audition and be named the best Euphonium player in the state of Louisiana!