cmchandler

Me too! It’s killing me being home this season.

Stop by SW souvies and say hey to my hubby for me! And once again, thanks for the great coverage.

Wooo! First show since Monday for my corps. Can't wait to see what's new.

1. Spartans 76.150 2. Legends 74.350 3. Southwind 70.750 4. 7th Regiment 69.400 5. Heat Wave 62.050 6. Raider 60.250 7. Les Stentors 58.850

Avon Lake is such a fantastically-run show (I believe it's Open Class Director Dave Eddleman's band that runs it). The venue is great, and it's a well-oiled machine, show-wise. And there's always an amazing, huge, responsive crowd. It's definitely one of my favorite spots on the OC tour. I really think you'll enjoy it. I encourage you to email Flo with your thoughts about this. I did, last season. And I'm curious to see what their response would be to you as compared to the one I received last summer.

Nah, this is just the west coast corps starting to line up on the east coast/Midwest judging panels. That drop happens almost every year in open class. It’s all just speculation and fun and games anyway until everyone’s on the same panel (which is why the WC Regional shows usually have one or two “surprises” that happen).

Thank you for your extensive coverage! Next best thing to being there.

Are scores running late?

Thanks for the great commentary and pictures!

Most of them go by OC finals placement from last year with the last spot going to whomever is doing encore.

Just glad to see some decent weather! I thought we were supposed to have the lockdown on crappy weather conditions down here in the deep south, but these recent shows have me rethinking that. Is it still hot up there? We have a freak cold front coming in down here - temps are dropping into the 60s overnight. In July. In Alabama. 👀

I don't know about that. Back when I marched Southwind in the early 90s, we won two back-to-back titles in then-Class A and Div. II (1991 and 1992). The next year, SW moved up to then-Open Class (now WC), and Carolina Crown won Div. II that year. I'm pretty sure those Crown members didn't count their victory as lesser than because we were no longer in that mix. I certainly don't. (I have some great college friends that marched that year, and they were very proud, and rightly so, of their achievement.) Basically, if you want to play that game, you could think current-day corps must wonder if they'd really have a chance against 27th Lancers. The point is you have to be in the game to be considered. I hate that SCVC and BDB, who both have fantastic programs, are not there competing this year (if just for a fuller member experience for their crew). But let's not denigrate the achievements of the open class corps who DOES win this season.

Thank you for the pictures!

Southwind bans smoking and vaping when participating in anything corps-related, up to and including housing, rehearsing and traveling with the corps. Most of that policy has to do with us housing, for the most part, exclusively on school campuses, which normally forbid tobacco products/vapes from being used on campus. Also, since the average age of the members is 18, most of them cannot smoke legally in most of the states where we rehearse or perform (the legal smoking age in Alabama is 19). Even the adults who smoke have to go do it off campus. Housing is hard enough to get these days without someone breaking the school system's rules and getting us all kicked out.

I got to head up for finals week last year, but I’m stuck at home this season because of a work project. My husband will be working souvies from NY on, though. Stop by and say hey when you jump on!

After we finish the southern swing this weekend, we're in Augusta, Nashua, Glens Falls, Syracuse, Sheffield, White Lake, Plymouth, Dixon-Park Falls, Plainwell, Avon Lake and then Marion/Indy.

This is our first swing northeast since coming back out - we're usually on the midwest swing at this point. It'll be nice to hit some cooler temps. It's been pretty brutal down here this summer.

122 or thereabout in SW this season. A couple of injuries are bouncing that number around a little, though.

I wish! Stuck at home working instead.

Here are Southwind's uniforms for their 2019 production, "Caged."

The second block scores have been announced but we couldn’t hear them here at SW souvies because of Star 1990 (we’re across from the DCI DVD booth). I heard a 71 something for Guardians and that’s about it.

Working souvies for Southwind today. Come by and say hello if you’re inclined (and buy some merch)! Great run today. So proud of these guys. Good season.

No one at the show tonight?

Did a show in Canada my first year of corps (1990). And I think we actually housed in Canada for finals in Buffalo that year.

Everyone is ok but tired. The tire looked pretty gnarly, though. They didn’t hit housing until around 10 am so they had to dig pretty deep to pull things off tonight. As always, very proud of how well these guys roll with adversity.