By Mike Hutchens, UC Schools Communications Director
Union City, Tenn.–Jason Deem has a unique way of determining the success of a marching band season.
“For me, it’s never about trophies or accolades,” insisted the Union City High School band director, who nonetheless saw his 148-member group earn plenty of hardware in the recently-completed competition season.
“I just really believe that all that matters is how much kids improve from July until November and that they feel good about themselves and what they did. I believe all that was true with this year’s group.”
Though their original schedule was regularly altered by Mother Nature ‑ which canceled the annual Union City Invitational and two community performances with rain and messy field conditions ‑ the marching Golden Tornadoes again enjoyed considerable success at a handful of competitions in which they competed.
UC was crowned the Grand Champion among 18 bands that participated in the West Tennessee Marching Band Championships at UT Martin in late October. The Twister band received Most Outstanding Visual Performance and Most Outstanding Musical Performance while both the percussion and color guard were judged best in their respective fields.
The “Purple People” also won first place in their division with their show “The Pale Horse” in both competitions at Clarksville and Franklin. The group wound up the season with good showings in both the Contest of Champions in Murfreesboro, and the Grand National Championships in Indianapolis.
“Contests are basically just the opinions of judges, so it’s not the best idea to determine your success based on what awards you might or might not get,” continued Deem, who is in his second season in charge of the UCHS band. “We started putting the show together with camp in July and I think our kids gradually got better as the year went on.
“That’s all I can ask for.”
Deem, who served 12 years as assistant director to longtime UC band director John Easley before taking over when Easley retired, wound up his 20th season in all in the business.
He insisted he’s excited, though, about what the future holds for the marching Tornadoes.
“We were young this year, very young,” he said while estimating around 70 percent of his group were either freshmen or sophomores. “That really added to the challenge this year – we lost a lot of seniors from last year and some incoming upperclassmen decided they didn’t want to be involved in the program anymore.
“Obviously, with this year’s experience, I expect us to be better next year. The kids have had to adjust to me and how my approach was different from John (Easley). They’ve had to learn how I work and what I expect of them.”
Deem said that gained experience will also dictate what kind of show he and his leaders would decide on for next year – a process they’ve already started.
“Our numbers were up this year, and that, along with the experience we gained, will be a part of the decision-making as to our show in 2019,” he insisted. “I expect us to have at least 20 seniors next year, and the number of instruments we have returning will be factored in, too.”
And while contest performances and their results will always draw attention to bands, Deem knows the importance of having a community presence.
“Playing at football games and marching in parades … those are the biggest and most-important things we do community-wise,” he concluded. “A lot of people don’t come to concerts or performances, but they do come to other events where we perform. They kids really love that, and so do I.
“We really missed doing the community performance this year because it’s become so popular. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a year when the weather was so inconsistent. We tried everything we could to perform one last time, but even our plans to do our show at Trenton at the last road playoff game didn’t work out because of the weather.
“Those who didn’t get a chance to see us perform can trust me though – we had a great season.”
Photo: Band members with this year’s trophies. (Mike Hutchens photo).
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