News : Benton Band celebrating success, growth and $25,000 donation

The Benton Community Band performs part of its 'Journey' show during halftime of Friday's game.

The Benton Band plays the Star Spangled Banner.

Benton Community Band has much to celebrate: Division 1 rating, fast growth and a $25,000 donation.

The BC percussion and strings sections play as the band members march.

When Scott Weber arrived at Benton Community High School in 2007, there were 42 band members, and it had been more than 20 years since any BC instrumental performance earned a Division 1 rating.

But even a casual spectator can see that there is a new era in progress for the Benton Community Band.

Weber was all smiles on Friday night as he watched his band -- which now has 115 members -- perform part of their 2011 routine, and heard the audience roaring its approval of the performance.

In addition to nearly tripling in size, earning four straight Division 1 ratings (and an invitation to the Mid-Iowa Championships in Ankeny in October) and the opportunity to perform in the Chicago Thanksgiving parade last year, the Benton Band has another 25,000 reasons to celebrate as it begins its 2011 season: A donation of that amount from Pepsi.

Pepsi representatives presented the check to the band after its halftime show.

Later, Weber shared his thoughts about the program and its successes with Vinton Today.

"The band has been very fortunate over the past several years, both financially and with support from administration and parents alike," said the director.

When Weber arrived in 2007, he had just one goal for his students.

"We started the band with the basic principle of being entertaining and providing support of our great school," he said. "The rest is history. We are proud of the traditions that we have established here at Benton in a short amount of time. We try our best to encourage each other to do our best while supporting all of the other bands in the area as well. You will regularly find our band in the stands cheering on competing bands at all of our competitions. For us, it's not about winning or losing, but about being entertaining and exciting for the crowd, The last thing people want to sit through is a boring ten minute show with no passion or excitement. We make that our mission every day. We don't need to be the best, just the most entertaining, and I think we have that covered."

The band's schedule for the fall of 2011 is "brutal," said Weber

"We started with the first football game; it was only one week into school but we had half the show on the field so that is excellent for us," he said

The band will compete in five major competitions this year, including Starfest at Sioux City, Iowa on Sept. 24, Five Seasons in Cedar Rapids on Oct. 1, Valleyfest and State Contest on Oct. 8, and finishing with Mid Iowa on Oct. 15.

"And within that grueling schedule are four more home games," Weber adds.

Weber also thanked the Benton Community parents and residents for their support, and their efforts to cast enough votes in the Pepsi program to win the $25,000.

Nancy Bode, a band parent, was the grant writer and main player on the Pepsi Grant, said Weber.

"I asked her to write the grant and she put in all the time and effort to make sure we got into the Pepsi voting site. After months of work and several thousand hours of voting and putting in pop top numbers, we were lucky enough to place 3rd out of over 170 other grant ideas nationwide," he said.

Weber said the band is very fortunate to receive this donation, which has made it possible to buy equipment that otherwise it could not.

"We have already purchased two contra tubas, two marching baritones, a marching mellophone, a new set of silks for the guard, and a new auxiliary cart for the front ensemble," he said.