pride of broken arrow

The Pride of Broken Arrow High School Marching Band won the 2021 Bands of America Grand National Championship with a score of 98.25, the highest score in history. The band members were emotional and cried tears of joy when they heard the results. The victory was especially meaningful for Katie Gerhardt, who had graduated from the school and was in the band when they won. After the competition, the band performed an encore on their home field and received their medals. The season coming to an end was bittersweet for Katie, who had spent four years in the band. She went on to participate in indoor percussion and achieved 7th place in the World Championship. The Pride of Broken Arrow is a close-knit family, and they have changed the rules for future competitions to aim for a perfect score of 100. And in first place and our 2021 Bands of America Grand National Champion award presented by Music for All President and CEO Jeremy L. Earnhardt, Vice President Doug Valeri and Chairman of the Board Gail Doster with a score of 98.25, the Broken Arrow High School Marching Band of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. That's right guys, the Pride of Broken Arrow is the greatest band in all the land. Anyways, let me introduce myself. My name is Kaylin Gerhardt and today I'm interviewing my older sister, Katie Gerhardt, which has fully graduated from Broken Arrow High School and was in the band in 2021 when they won the Grand National Championship. Today we're talking about what happened, what she felt like during when she won the Grand National Championship and how she feels. Katie, you ready? Yeah, I'm ready. All right. Okay, so pretty much how it starts, it goes from 12th place all the way up to first. Pretty much you all have to like, when you guys get done performing, you guys go like sit in a seat with your group. So I was with Pride of Broken Arrow and pretty much when they start going, you guys, pretty much for our group, we all just start to hold hands and that's how it all starts. And pretty much when they go up from 12th and go all the way up, we just all started like squeezing each other's hands and just hoping. And pretty much when they get to like general effects, general effects for me pretty much means you like have won. That means you have won it or you got second. So pretty much my senior year for general effect, we haven't got general effect in Indianapolis since in a long time. So pretty much it's like I'm holding my friend's hands, I start to cry, my friends start to cry and we're all just like ducking our heads together and they call general effect for Pride of Broken Arrow. And here you see all the, pretty much our group, we start to like, pretty much just start crying and just like screaming at the same time. And that's when they go down to now, second place and first place. Second place, they announced Avon, no, no, they announced the Carmel. They announced the Carmel and I'm just squeezing my friend's hand, I'm just like, they did not just announce Carmel. And I'm just like, I can't believe it. I was still like in shock, I'm still like holding my friend's hands and then pretty much when they called first Pride of Broken Arrow for 98.255 and I'm just like, we beat that score, the highest score in history. And it just started to blow up when they start saying that score and I'm just like, we did it, we had the highest score and that to me was the best time of my life. During around that time, I was actually in Indianapolis watching my sister on the field for the very first time in a long time because me and my family have never been to any of her competitions that were way, so far away and everything. So we've always watched it on TV, but being there and hearing we got a 98.25, I was like super shocked because I'm like, that has never happened in band history, that has never happened before. The highest score in history was a 95 and that was with Broken Arrow, that was back in 2007. And then Carmel, yes, and then Carmel broke the record in 2019 with a 97 point something, we can't remember the points afterwards. So basically, what you're saying Katie is, you were so emotional during that time and everything. What did it feel like when you returned home with The Eagle, which his name is Kevin, Kevin Eagle, they always call him Kevin Eagle. I was so in shock, I still couldn't believe it. After we were done, it was already past midnight and then pretty much we had to go do an encore performance and pretty much, I hugged one of my good friends, Jackson, he was my dance partner my senior year and I will always appreciate him because dancing with him, pretty much for me, he was tall and I'm short, so that was kind of like our struggle right there and doing lifts and all that and pretty much this is like, it was hard for us. And plus, Jackson was actually in my grade junior year, so basically, she had one of my friends that was in my grade that was still a long way past when she was past it. So basically, when you came home after a couple weeks after you won Grand Nationals, you gave an encore performance on your home turf, on your field and everything, and you showed every single song, lyrics, or anything from it, I was still crying, yeah, I could tell. And then afterwards, you had a huge tremor. I got a big tremor real quickly, so after we got done performing our encore performance, I was still crying and that's when we got our medals. We have two medals, so we got the champion one, we got the one, we got, semifinals, no, we already had, I think we had the finalist medals, and then pretty much like when we woke up the next day, it started snowing. Which actually surprised us. It surprised me because it started snowing when we started to go back, I was like, well that's a sign right there for us. We did something. Because here's the thing, every single time we've gone to Indianapolis, it's never snowed. It's always been freezing. It's freezing or it's raining. Or it's raining, freezing cold weather, actually. So basically, with the Pride of Broken Arrow, we're always close with the Pride of Broken Arrow family. The thing is, and once how we travel, we all go on shuttle buses. I didn't have to go on a shuttle bus. So pretty much, we have like, I think, four buses and you guys get to pick your seats. Boys are always in the back, I don't know why, and girls are always in front. So you guys get to pick who you get to sit by and all that kind of stuff. And it's always, will always be my favorite thing is when the drum line, sometimes like early in the morning, you start like drumming and doing what you always do. You mean at 5 a.m.? No. That's early in the morning you start doing it, I'm like, okay, I know what time it is. You mean like, after like, or on the way there? On the way there and on the way back. So basically, after your performance and everything, you got the encore and everything, what did it feel like after the Pride season finally came to an end? When the Pride season finally came to an end, I'm just like, I was sad, I'm just like, I don't know what to do with my life now. I spent four years in it and then pretty much after the Pride season ended, I did indoor percussion, which that was fun because that was my first time ever doing it and we did it with a small group and we went to Dayton, Ohio. Where was the Indoor World Championship was during around that time. And we never get in finals and we got 7th place in finals and I'm just like, we did something. And that was our very first time doing that, getting in finals. So basically, the Pride of Broken Arrow has never been in the finals and the indoor percussion, but everything. It's really hard to get into indoor and everything, especially when we're telling the story to you guys and everything. This is just so much, means so much to me and my sister, because I've always been to like every single competition, every single open rehearsal that she's been with the Pride. Every single practice, every single... After school event. After school event, you've been to any parades I do. Or any concerts. Any concerts, band concerts. But the one thing that was weird, that kind of year, is you guys did not have your performing arts center performance where the parents usually get to see everything. Yeah, we did. Oh, wait. They didn't let the parents do it. They didn't let the parents do it. I was going on my medals and one of my medals actually broke. I remember that. Does that have to fix that? No, I fixed it. Okay. Well, anyways. This story was telling you guys about the 2021 Grand National Championship with the highest scoring ever in all time this season. Now, letting you know one more thing. They have changed the rules for that competition now to like not go past the highest scoring ever since we beat it. They want you to get a perfect 100 now in that competition right now. That's been really hard to beat right now because Carmel's trying to get that up and then Pride of Buccaneer is trying to almost get to that goal also. I hope you guys enjoy this story of us. Thank you, Katie, for coming. Thank you for letting me come on. Well, it's nice to have my sister and everything come over and everything. I hope you guys like the story and everything. If you guys want to hear more about Pride stories and everything, you can leave it up. Bye, guys.