LINCOLN UNIVERSITY- Returning to the helm of the Marching Knights this season, Ted Heller was not exactly sure what to expect from his band, but as the fall has marched on the Knights too have marched toward success.

On Saturday October 28th the North Penn Marching Knights traveled to the Pennsylvania USBands State Championships. Receiving their highest score for the season at States, the Marching Knights’ show, “Hope Rules”, scored a 93.4 and were awarded Group 4 Open Pennsylvania State Champions. Also they received the highest score of the competition.

“Winning was a little bit of a surprise because I did not know what to expect when the season started. I do things differently than the previous band director. I had a formula, I didn’t know whether that formula would work with this group or not,” said Director Ted Heller.

Practicing the show for roughly 20 hours each week starting in August, this win is what the Marching Knights have been working for. With many changes taken place this season, a new director and practice schedule, the Marching Knights received a handful of new members. Although both new and old members were surprised how high the Marching Knights were able to score, everyone was happy to see the hard work pay off.

“I definitely wasn’t expecting to hear our score be so high, and basically the highest score of the whole night. As a first year Marching Knight, it felt really surreal to hear that, and all the hours we spent sweating and freezing were so worth it,” said senior Pit member, Brenna Visby.

“It feels great being successful after putting in hours of hard work towards something and to do it all with my closest friends by my side is even better,” said senior President, Lindsay Durkin.

Ted Heller, being the new head director, added some new additional staff this season. The students feel that the staff this year had a huge influence on the great performances all season.  

“I think our dedication and passion as a band is what made us State Champions. We have an amazing staff who push us and love us above and beyond. They help us understand not only what it means to be a part of something bigger than ourselves, but also what it means to be a Marching Knight. I don’t consider us to be like other marching bands out there. The staff always tells us, there is something special about our marching band, something that gives us this power and motivation to breath and march as a family, and I can feel it on the field,” said Color Guard section leader, Madison Joyce.

The next big competition for the Marching Knights is the USBands National Championships at the MetLife stadium. They have high hopes for improving mistakes that were made at States and placing just as high.

“There were some bad parts of the show that we worked on earlier in the day. They had a good performance, but they didn’t have a great performance. The thing is,  you don’t do marching band to win anything, you do marching band for the moment to perform. If you want to keep growing, the program has to evolve. We are still adding more elements to the show to make it more intriguing after listening to the judges’ tapes. We are going back, cleaning things and adding things with two more weeks to get it done,” said Ted Heller.

After such an upset for the Marching Knights, coming in 9th at Nationals last year, many returning members are hoping for better results this year. Many of the members have a lot more confidence going into Nationals as State Champions.

“Winning State Champs was a huge breath of fresh air! I came into this program as a freshman and I look back at my Marching Knights experience as a roller coaster of a journey. I went into NPMK knowing the legacy I had to live up to and that year we sure did deliver. I don’t think we ever lost and we were National Champions. To go from that caliber of performance to dropping to a ninth place was devastating. I wanted everyone to know how great our band is and I felt we didn’t show that last year. Something I have said a lot this year is that I think the title of our season this year, “Hope Rules” and the show itself is a representation of that journey,” said Joyce.

Following Regionals this weekend and Nationals next weekend, the public can aee the Marching Knights perform at home for the last time at Community Knight in Crawford Stadium on November 13th at 7pm.