Maybe I'm a little biased (I was the drum major at Davenport Central with my friend, Mark Witt, back in 1985)...but how cool is this?! Davenport Central's Blue Devil Marching Band has been invited to perform in London's New Year's Day Parade in 2022 (a Thursday morning, for those of you playing along at home). Apparently, they reserver 16 performance slots per year for marching bands, because England doesn't have anything comparable. The parade will be the 36th annual and feature more than 8,000 performers, a crowd of around 500,000, and a viewing audience in the tens of millions!
Not to brag, but we played the Maquoketa Oktoberfest of Bands back in the day...but I digress.
Iowa State University's marching band performed in that parade back in 2000, but the director of the parade couldn't recall any other high school bands from Iowa marching in London for that parade.