Members, I must always start with you. We do this for you. Your dedication, patience, trust, and effort do not go unnoticed. Thank you for making this a rewarding experience.
To our fantastic staff, thank you. You are underappreciated, and clearly underpaid. Ha. If anyone out there is looking for help with your ensemble, I can only give the highest recommendations. I can get you in touch with some fine educators.
I don’t think there are enough thanks that I can give to the Burns family for their support of our members, staff, and administration. You were a big part of the ‘Heart’ to this season.
To Autumn Hassel and the Seay Family. Thank you for letting us explore our emotions through performance and music in honor of John. We hope that we have made him proud.
Extra thanks goes to Jon Cooper for managing our facilities on top of a great teaching job. Thanks for a great Night of Percussion, and all the work to keep us running at West Orange.
Thank you to the parents and families of our members for your continuing commitments to their education and musical experiences.
Thanks to the families, spouses, children, and significant others of our staff. We know they work crazy hours and babble on about ‘flams’ and ‘drill’ and ‘body movement.’ Sorry about that. You can have them back now.
Thanks to Kelly Charles, our intern, for keeping me sane and on task. See you at Starbucks soon.
Big thanks to Matt W Moore, a great artist who was kind enough to let us use his art for our floor and inspiration for visual and uniform design. I hope that we used it well.
Another big thanks to some generous high school band directors in the area including Rhett Cox and Devin Hoey at Timber Creek, Phil Obado at East River, Adam Steff at University, Ken Boyd at West Orange, and Adam McIntyre at Winter Springs.
And additional thanks to the directors and administration at West Orange High School and the Ninth Grade Campus for their kind assistance throughout the school year.
To Brent Becker with Stanbury who again helped us create stunning uniforms that captured our vision in Color and Heart.
Chris and the guys at Mapex. Once again, stellar drums, good people, great support. We could not do this without you.
Thanks also to the teams at Promark and Remo. Best gear on the planet.
Our website is awesome, and that is thanks to Jeremy Harrington. Use him to build your next website! Email him here: Jeremy@crawlspacemedia.com
We are also indebted to the work done by our friends at the Orange County Public Schools Administration and Facilities offices.
The staff and members with the West Orange Colorguard.
Jill and the crew at Algy
The team at Kramer
Jordan at Big Top/AKT
Lenny Smith at New Jerusalem Music
The folks and drivers with Magical Charters
Anne at Custom Sports Sleeves
The folks at Ramada Plaza Dayton
Benji Hill for the encouragement
All of the staff and volunteers for WGI, FFCC, and all of their events.
Thank you to all of the artists and musicians who inspired the creation of this program and those who were featured on colorandheart.com. That includes the great work of Sufjan Stevens and Omar Carmenates.
Again, thanks to the Infinity crew for representing Central Florida so well, and building this area with us in education and performance.
Personally, to the Verburg family, Walker family, Porter family, and Perez family.
This year, I’d like to end again by thanking the music educators of our members and staff. Teachers, directors, instructors, we are only using the information you have passionately given to us. Thanks.
-Matt
