The Fountain Hills High School marching band’s competition season has drawn to a close with the Falcons taking part in the recent state event.

Along with the entire flock earning an overall rating of “Excellent,” the ladies who make up the guard have brought home a caption award for the second year in a row.

Guard captain Nataly Gruender and guard member Skye Brewster were excited to talk about this year’s performance, which packed in a lot of music and a lot of flair over the course of three songs.

This year’s show was called “That ‘70s Jazz Fusion Show,” boasting tunes that mixed a bit of jazz with more modern offerings and lots of energy. While the musicians cranked out the tunes, the guard added its own spin on the performance by dancing, twirling flags, waving umbrellas and more.

Aside from putting on performances during the high school football games’ halftime shows, the local band went on to compete at several events and earn loads of awards, including a complete sweep at the recent NAU Band Day.

Performing at state was another big accomplishment for the Falcons, which Gruender and Brewster said capped off the 2015 season nicely.

“For [guards], it can be difficult to put together the choreography, because we don’t have a guard instructor or choreographer or anything,” Gruender said.

“We do everything ourselves, which is kind of unheard of for guards. Schools usually have like three people working with the guard, and we go ahead and listen to the music and figure out our show for ourselves.”

Gruender said she and the rest of the fronts were excited when they heard this year’s music selection because the songs sounded like a lot of fun.

“When we heard this year’s songs, we knew we could do a lot of things with our flags, with our colors and do the fun dance moves that the crowd likes, because we like to perform for the crowd,” Gruender added.

According to band instructor Lynn Truby, Gruender and Brewster wrote the lion’s share of this year’s program.

It’s a process that other schools don’t usually offer, but one Truby said is a huge part of her squad’s experience with the music program.

Truby said she relied on the support of local dance instructor Gianna Levin to help the girls add some sophistication and grace to their movements but, otherwise, it was an all-Falcon show.

“That makes a big difference in what you see when the show is finally performed,” Truby said.

“Those little touches add a lot.”

Brewster said she was happy with the way this year’s show turned out, with each new song added to the routine making the performance better and better.

“Watching the videos after the performances, it was awesome to see how we moved together,” Brewster said.

“Seven out of the 11 guards are seniors, so we’ve been working together for a long time. It’s been such a big jump over the years and everyone improved so much over this season.”

Gruender agreed.

“The word we kept going back to this season was ‘crescendo,’” she said.

“With each song, we wanted to louder and go bigger with our performances. Of course we were nervous at state, but I think we were all pretty confident in this performance.

“We always tell the girls to go have fun and we really did that at state. I think it was the best show of my life.”

Brewster continued.

“It was our last performance, so there were a lot of emotions going on,” she said.

“It was so exciting when they announced we had received the caption award. It was the best moment.”

This makes the second consecutive state caption award for the Falcon guard, a feat Truby said is heightened by the unique structure of the local program.

“It’s a big ribbon to wear,” she said.

“They’re up there against all of these schools that have so much staff working with their kids. I think this is the education side of it; that they could now go out and work for one of those other schools and teach their guards because they’ve already had that experience of designing a show themselves.

“I think it means more when you’ve created it yourself, and that’s exactly what they do, which makes the caption award mean even more."