A thundering herd will enter Cowboys Stadium in January, and it’s not the Broncos or the Colts.
The Grandview High School Zebra’s Thundering Herd Band has been selected, with about 15 other schools across the country, to attend and perform in the New Year’s Day Parade and the AT&T; Cotton Bowl game Jan. 2 at the new stadium in Arlington.
Band Director Mac McKinnerney said the band’s winning entry was a video of it performing last year’s rendition of “Fiddler on the Roof.”
“We had a pretty good show last year,” he said. “I don’t know what made us stand out; that just had to be one of the good years that we had a real good show. The quality of the show and the playing of the kids.”
When the school received the acceptance letter on Aug. 31, McKinnerney said the entire district lit up.
“They were very excited and so was the administration and everybody else,” he said. “They were like, ‘Wow, our school is going to be in the Cotton Bowl.’ They were excited about going.”
On Dec. 31, the band will tour the South Fork Ranch — home of the show “Dallas.”
The band will participate in the New Year’s Day parade on Jan. 1, which will be broadcast on Dallas TV station Fox 4.
On Jan. 2, the band will perform with the other winners during the halftime show.
The competitions allow for eight different styles of performance, but McKinnerney said they plan on doing concert band, jazz band and parade.
“We’re practicing, doing concert band, working on our Christmas concert and marching for our football games. We have a full day,” he said. “Some of the concert music will be new stuff. And of course the parade. We don’t usually march parades a lot.”
The competition follows University Interscholastic League guidelines but is not UIL sanctioned.
“It’s like no pass, no play. We still follow that same rule,” he said. “If they don’t pass their subjects, they don’t get to go.”
Students are raising money to pay for their trip and hope to raise about $430 per student.
“We did a cookie dough sale, and a lot of kids did well with that. We did a Dodge truck giveaway, and that went real well,” he said. “We made about $6,000 off of that. Things like that help out a whole lot.”
For information or to donate call McKinnerney at Grandview High School at 817-487-2014.
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