RyanRaider22

Finalist 1 Richardson High School 96.700 2 W.E. Boswell High School 96.200 3 Mount Pleasant High School 93.500 4 William J. Brennan High School (TX) 92.900 5 Karen J. Wagner High School 91.300 6 Brewer High School 90.700 7 North Forney High School 89.900 8 Ryan High School 87.100 9 Veterans Memorial High School (TX-Judson) 86.400 10 Parkway High School 83.500 11 Akins Early College High School 82.900 12 Gainesville High School 81.300 Great job Ryan band! Y'all slayyyyed so hard!

North Forney, Mt. Pleasant and Ryan going up against Louisiana schools should make this an interesting contest especially after all the growth we've seen from these bands at Area contests. I'm also interested to see how Lake Worth and South Hills performe as they've been getting stronger as well. Best of luck to all the bands competing at AT&T stadium. I hope more folks will start to talk about USBands. Apparently the band directors are loving them.

Sorry for the sorta sappy post but in regards to my Alma Mater: While they didn't make it to finals (hey two of the judges thought y'all should have!) I would like to take a moment and applaud the Ryan High School band for an excellent Area performance. This is the highest you've scored here in years and your dedication and commitment helped you to beat 5 other incredible band programs! While the judges appeared to have a really love it or really hate it relationship in regards to your scoring, I know that you gave it your all and didn't let adversity beat you down! Losing your head director suddenly to cancer is like losing a parent, but you kids would have made Mrs. Brown proud! Best of luck at the USBands Championship in Arlington next week and always remember the moto "let's have our pie! Pride, Integrity, Excellence!" Bravo Ryan band! 🤘

I just hope Ryan at the very least beats Lake Dallas again and doesn't get dead last. Those kids have been through so much this year.

Ryan High from Denton is now attending. This is the first time they've attended a contest after area! Super proud to see all the growth from my Alma Mater!

Anybody at this contest right now? How is it going so far?

The Ryan Raider band of Denton presents their 2023 Andy Warhol themed show entitled: Pop! (culture) Rest easy Mrs. Brown

This is a great list. I love Tview's interesting shows and Godley is a strong group. I saw John Horn last year and they were great with a nice warm tone throughout. They had a solid performance. Castleberry did very good for themselves last year. They made it to finals at several contests but I agree there are too many large bands for them to place at the top most likely.

Sorry for the bump but, I did some digging and other than the video I uploaded of "Horizon" part 1 from late August (which is missing the flute duet and synth stuff) the only other video I could find is parts 2 and 3 of "Horizon" when Ryan played against Aledo the night before Area B. Late August: Night before Area:

(Sorry for the little rant lol) I think there's several reasons Ryan sounds great but places towards the bottom compared to the big guys. I think the reasons as an alumni would be: Until 3 years ago, one out of our two middle school feeders had an incompetent band director put there by the district. (They have a boa level director now) and the other middle school has always had a great director. The district in general doesn't really care about us. They throw all their money at Braswell while our band hall is running out of space, with little support or recognition from the district other than the occasional Twitter post. Most schools have an entire team for the band while our program only has 2 directors in charge of everything. (One of which is battling cancer currently :/) A very transient and economically disadvantaged student population. In 2021 we had to come up with an entirely different show on the fly during band camp because most of our percussion section moved away or had to start working jobs to support their families. I think the biggest reason is the animosity our school gets from sadly both competing students and other band parents from other programs. We've been called slurs by other band programs members and their parents sadly aren't much better. It's easy to lose motivation when even parents are saying in the stands "oh it's Ryan, those guys are lazy." Or "these guys don't even have show themed uniforms. Haha!" They're a great program with a lot of adversity to overcome, but that's what makes them stronger as players and as people. I can vouch for that. 😎

Nobody here has mentioned Ryan. I think they for sure can place above Everman and both Crowley schools. They've also been getting bigger every year. In 2021 they had 7 trombones and are now up to 22. The other bands are kind of a wildcard honestly. They might beat Tview and Lamar as well, but I don't have faith in them beating the larger bands just because it's easier to find mistakes in smaller bands like Ryan. I think summit has also been free falling down hill over the past year. Not a bad band at all, just definitely not where they used to be.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/rDVKm1WeVtdqqRL78 Prelim score sheet

Unless I suck at math, I thought there were 9 bands competing in finals after us at Ryan had to change plans? Did they let the 11th place band have our vacated spot?

I'm in Ryan's band. We won best in our class and ranked way ahead of the other 2A bands and most of the 3A bands. Due to unfortunate timing, we had to leave and give up our finals spot. We were ranked overall in 7th in front of Pine tree and behind Frisco Liberty. Great job raiders! Loved the Lovejoy show btw!

The Denton Ryan Raider band is performing their show entitled "Pathways". Its going very well for us so far.