West Virginia Delegate Garcia presents historic legislative citation award to all Fairmont Senior Area Bands

FAIRMONT, W.Va. (WBOY) — Back in February, Four Fairmont Senior Area Bands made history after all of them received an overall superior rating at the 2024 WVSSAC Region 10 Band Festival, and celebrated their achievements with a performance at Fairmont Senior High School Thursday night.

During the celebration, all four bands were honored with a legislation citation from West Virginia Delegate Joey Garcia of the West Virginia House of Delegates.

The Fairmont Senior Area Band consists of:

• West Fairmont Middle School 6th grade Beginning Band
• West Fairmont Middle School 7th and 8th grade Concert Band
• Rivesville Middle School 6th and 8th grade Band
• Fairmont Senior High School Polar Bear Concert Band

“You know, the rating is really fantastic because it’s very rare especially just for middle school bands in general to score as well as they did to me coming into this and you know experiencing it firsthand, it’s really impressive the work these kids are putting in,” a Student Teacher from West Virginia University Luke Mazure said.

Delegate Garcia said that since 2008, Fairmont Senior Area Bands have earned a combined total of 18 superior ratings at the WVSSAC band festival. He also announced that the Rivesville Middle School Band will be the first middle school band in Marion County history to perform out of state at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio.

“It was just a mindset that we’ve as directors have instilled in these kids, to do their very best from day one,” Fairmont Junior Band Alliance at Rivesville Elementary and Middle School and West Fairmont Middle School Director Josh Tharp said.

Mazure also said that the most important skill that the students are working on is working with other people and that the band gives students a lot of experience in order to make them more personable and easy to work with.

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