Lots of eyes are going to be on the Jackson Jaguar Marching Band this Friday as they conduct their traditional debut of their competition show on Friday. What won’t be so traditional will be the guest in the audience. In the bleachers this year, will be Tournament of Roses President Sally Bixby and her husband. Band Director Bud McCormick says Bixby will be presenting the Jaguars with a Tournament of Roses Flag for their participation in the upcoming event.

Band Assistant Director Jason Dias says they’re going to be doing two performances in the Munley Football Field at Jackson Memorial High School at 6:30. “Our first performance is going to be primarily music based. So we’ll stand in front of the field and present our music show and then we’re going to reset and actually do our field show that we’ll do for our competition season.”

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McCormick says in preparation for the parade, the Tournament of Roses flew a few of them to Pasadena last year to watch the parade and get down the parade’s exacting rules. He says they’re are not only rules on where the buses are going to be parked and where the bands are going to be lined up “there’s specific instructions that everyone should march to a 28 inch step, the tempo of the parade can not go any slower than 1/40 beats per minute, it’s a six and a half mile hike (that includes hills) and everything has got to be like clockwork.” He also adds that they basically have to perform nonstop through the entire parade route.

The marching band is also closing in on its fundraising goal, with $100,000 raised so far but McCormick says they still have a ways to go to send all 200 band members and chaperones to Pasadena, California for a week at the end of the year.

McCormick says Friday’s performance will also be filmed by MSNBC and there will be helicopter flying overhead.

You can get the details about the band and their fundraising efforts at www.jacksonjaguarband.com

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