Havre High School Marching Band preforms well at regional competition

The Havre High School Marching Band placed 10th out of 17 in the Washington State University Marching Band Championship in Pullman Saturday, beating both of the other Montana bands at the event, Gallatin High School and Bozeman High School. both Class AA.

Havre High placed second in its category.

The community celebrated the band’s return to Havre with a parade through town Sunday.

Havre High School Band Director Cullen Hinkle said Havre High School placed ahead of the other schools in their class, both with more than twice their school populations as well.

Hinkle said most of the schools they were competing with had student populations between 700 and 2,500, with most from Washington and a few others from Idaho.

He said it was a good opportunity for Havre High’s band, which he said performed admirably, noting that every band that placed ahead of them had budgets of more than $100,000 and much more staff.

“It was really exciting for the kids to be able to go in there and be competitive,” he said.

He said the students and their families put in the work to get them there and the band had a tremendous amount of support from the larger community.

The band had been holding daily practices at Blue Pony Stadium for the past several weeks preparing for the competition.

As someone from Louisiana, Hinkle said, his background is in competitive band, and he wanted to give the students some exposure to that kind of thing, so he found a regional competition they could go to.

He said the students were itching to do more anyway, so it seemed like a natural choice.