Toot your own horn! Olive Branch band is the state champion

Olive Branch High School wins the school’s first-ever state marching band championship

Photo: Olive Branch High School Marching Band performing in competition. (Olive Branch High School Band/Facebook)

Nov. 6, 2024 – DeSoto County is home to many talented high school musicians and marching band organizations. Several Mississippi Bandmasters Association (MBA) MHSAA state championships have returned on the drive up I-55 back to DeSoto County schools each year.

However, a first happened recently at the MBA state competition for 6A schools. Bringing home the state title for the first time ever was the Olive Branch High School Band. The 122-member organization, led by Director of Bands Thaddeus Moss, won the championship during the 6A competition at Pearl High School on Oct. 26.

Moss said the show presented for competition was called “Matumaini, A Journey of Hope,” which Moss said a design team with him wrote and choreographed for the presentation.  

“It’s really special to me because a lot of the music was East African,” Moss said. “There’s a lot of core music that was taken just to use as inspiration. Think a lot of bright, vibrant colors in a show about happiness.”  

The show was conceived by a team that featured music arrangers and the visual arrangers, along with Moss. The entire presentation took about a year from conception to completion.  

“Last year, around this time, we had placed second in state championships and the day after I immediately got with our design team and we started planning this show,” Moss said. “It took about a couple months to get the design and everything together, and we started working on the music earlier in January. It goes all the way up until July, and then that’s when we get to the final product and get to work on it.”

The practice regimen begins in July and involves hours of practice time color guard, percussion and musicians.  

When the band takes the field for their show, points are earned for more than just playing the music well.  

“The main category is what we call music performance, music ensemble and music individual, or are the kids playing the music correctly?” Moss said.  “The next caption is visual performance, judging how well the students are performing what we ask them to perform. We also have a general effect, which is hearing what you see and making sure it all gets put together.” 

Moss said there are also color guard and percussion performances that are being judged for a score.  Adding to that pressure is that not all of the judges are tucked away in a press box while it’s going on. Moss said some of the judges are walking around the band while the band performs.  Two are on the field and six others are assigned to judge different aspects from the press box.  

When watching a marching band show, Moss hopes the viewer is able to see the precision, or drill as he calls it and visualize what the music is presenting.  

“The pictures that we make on the field is the best way I can explain it, by just looking at the pictures and making sure that everybody’s equally spaced and that the pictures are given as it is supposed to,” said Moss.  

In the state finals, Olive Branch competed against the other 6A schools in DeSoto County, Lake Cormorant and Center Hill, along with seven other schools from across the state. They qualified for the state finals after competing in state evaluations, which for the county 6A schools was held in Tupelo.  

Ahead of state evaluations and the state competition, bands such as Olive Branch compete in other events to compete and tweak their show ahead of state competition. It’s almost like a regular season for marching bands. 

Moss said winning the state championship means a lot to him and to the marching band, which is now among those that can be included in the list of DeSoto County state champions from other DCS schools. 

“Just going back all the way to 2017 when I first was here, I knew this place was special,” Moss said. “We were talented but it was just often overlooked, like all the branches normally overlooked, and so it was a very big deal for me and the kids to show everybody that we can do this at Olive Branch. So basically, for me, it was confirming what I already knew.”

Moss first taught in Olive Branch but moved to Senatobia before returning to Olive Branch two years ago. 

Click on this link for the State 6A competition final scores. Click on this link for the State 7A competition final scores, which had Hernando take second and DeSoto Central was third, while Lewisburg finished sixth. Germantown (Madison) was the 7A state champion.  

Following is a video of the Olive Branch band’s presentation at the MBA state championship.