Tag Archives: andress

27 bands took the field at Franklin High School Saturday, as El Paso ISD hosted their invitational contest for area marching bands.

Serving as adjudicators for the event were Valentino Leyba, Kevin Moreman, and Shawn Silva, all band directors in the Las Cruces Public Schools. Instrumental Coordinator Julio Castillo was the contest organizer.

Due to the large number of bands entered, the contest was divided into morning and afternoon sessions. An awards ceremony was held at 11:30 after the first 13 bands performed. After a lunch break, the afternoon saw another 14 bands take the field, capping the day with an awards ceremony for these bands at the final conclusion of the contest.

Receiving first divisions, which denotes a “Superior” performance, were Franklin, Riverside, Parkland, Hanks, Bel Air, Eastlake and Del Valle High Schools in the morning session, and Irvin, Burges, Americas, and Coronado High Schools in the afternoon.

Bands receiving second divisions, denoting an “excellent” performance, were Horizon, Eastwood, Ysleta, and Socorro High Schools in the morning, and El Paso, Andress, Jefferson Silva, and Chapin High Schools in the afternoon.

Bands receiving a third division, or “good” performance, were Canutillo, Anthony, Fabens, Clint, Bowie, San Elizario, and Austin High Schools.

This contest served as a tune up for the bands and was great for getting some last minute pointers from the judges before the UIL contest next Saturday. All the El Paso-area bands will compete in the state- sanctioned contest which this year will advance 2-, 4-, and 6-A bands to the Area marching band contests for each respective class.

Those contests will take place in Amarillo for the 2-As, Lubbock for the 4-As, and Odessa for the 6-As on October 27th.

Locally, there is plenty more action coming up in Band-tober. The aforementioned UIL contest is next Saturday, October 13, at the SAC. This contest will be for ratings, just as today’s contest was, with qualifying bands advancing to the Area round of contests on the 27th.

On October 20, bands from Texas and New Mexico will take the field again at the SAC for the SISD Marchfest. The Marchfest contest uses a 7- person judging panel and is a two-round contest.

After prelims, 6 bands from the small band class will advance to a finals round, while 8 bands in the large band class will advance. No division ratings are given at this contest. Instead, the bands are given numerical scores and ranked in first place, second place, and so on.

The experience of competing for those rankings will come in handy for the last weekend in October. The advancing bands attending the Area contests will be ranked, and the highest -placing bands will advance to the State marching band contest.

This contest is held at the Alamodome in San Antonio on November 5,6, and 7.

Meanwhile, most of those bands not advancing to Area contests will instead journey up to Las Cruces for the NMSU Tournament of Bands, also taking place on October 27th. This contest, too, uses a 7-person judging panel and a prelims/finals format.

The Tournament of Bands for many years has served as the penultimate contest for bragging rights around the area, and promises some amazing marching show action for local band fans.

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Author – Lorraine Kubala

The complete schedule can be viewed on the ‘Musical Notes- The Blog’ page on Facebook.  

Click here for a complete listing of all the ‘Bandtober’ Events

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Once again, the El Paso Herald-Post will be providing band fans with LIVE, STREAMING coverage of SISD’s Marchfest on October 20, 2018!   Our day-long coverage starts at 7:20 and goes on through the finals!

Andress senior Chauncey Wilkes won his first varsity meet ever winning the Chapin Invitational at Skyline Park in 16:40.3

Americas junior Jacob Ye was second (16:43.18), third went to Socorro senior Mario Luna (16:52.22), Franklin senior Jacobo Wedemeyer was fourth (16:56.73) and Americas senior Tyler Rodriguez was fifth (16:58.11).

Ye and Rodriquez led the Americas boys to a meet championship. Americas won the team title with 32 points followed by Socorro (77), Chapin (97), Burges (99) and Franklin (101).

On the girl’s side, Franklin sophomore Eva Jess continues her two-year El Paso unbeaten streak alive, winning the race in 19:15.11. Chapin senior Skyler Goodman was second in 20:39.84 followed by Franklin senior Amalia Dorion (20:58.52) and a pair of Americas juniors – Daphne Duran (21:00.14) and Priscilla Villalobos (21:05.44).

Franklin’s top five finished in the top 12 to take the team title with 34 points followed by Americas (48), Socorro (66), Bel Air (108) and Hanks (114).

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For complete and in-depth coverage of the meet, as well as photos, this week’s Power Rankings, top 10 teams, top 25 times and more, log on to elpasorunning.com, follow them on Twitter @eprunning or visit their Facebook page

In Game Two of a Friday Night Lights Doubleheader in the Permian Basin, the Monterey Plainsmen downed the Andress Eagles 52 to 14.

Our very own Andres Acosta was there, and brings you his own view of the game via this ‘Story in Many Pics’ brought to you by Omega Air.

Northeast El Paso was the site of yet another classic rivalry game Friday night, as the Andress Eagles took on the Irvin Rockets.

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A sea of gold, purple, teal, maroon and blue caps and gowns filled the front of the Bowie High School auditorium Thursday morning as summer grads prepared to make their way across the stage.

The first of two summer graduation ceremonies at Bowie on Thursday featured nearly 100 seniors from Andress, Austin, Bowie, Burges and Chapin high schools and College, Career & Technology Academy.

The program led off with keynote speaker Laura DuVernois, an assistant principal at Silva Health Magnet, who congratulated the graduates and wished them continued success.

“Be humble, be kind,” she told them. “Most importantly don’t forget where you came from and always follow your dreams. Congratulations class of 2017.”

A similar sea of colors representing Coronado, El Paso, Franklin, Irvin and Jefferson high schools lined the first few rows of the Bowie auditorium for the afternoon commencement ceremony. Just more than 50 students walked the stage to collect their diploma.

Keynote speaker Elizabeth Saenz, deputy superintendent of academic leadership, spoke before the graduates received their diplomas.

“As you go into the world, look back often and remember the friends you made in here in high school,” Saenz said. “Take with you the many things you learned from your teachers, parents and your community and make this world a better place – after all the challenges of the world are yours to conquer.”

Receiving diplomas were seniors who completed their graduation requirements during the summer.

Photos courtesy EPISD

On Thursday, El Paso Independent School District Superintendent Juan Cabrera announced the appointment of two experienced educators to lead Andress and Franklin high schools as new principals.

Joseph Manago will start his tenure as principal at Andress on March 23. Shawn Mena will take over as principal at Franklin on April 3.

“Mr. Manago and Ms. Mena come with a long list of accomplishments and we feel they’re the right fit for their respective campuses,” Cabrera said. “Our search for principals at these two campuses was extensive and thorough. I have the confidence that we have selected two educators who care deeply about the schools they’re about to lead and the communities they will serve.”

Manago has 23 years of experience as an educator and is currently the principal at Nolan Richardson Middle School in the Andress feeder pattern.

Before that he served as an English teacher in both the Ysleta and Socorro school districts, and as a high-school assistant principal and assistant fine arts director in Socorro. He has a bachelor’s of arts and master’s in education from the University of Texas at El Paso.

Mena is currently the Director of the Arts and Humanities Academy in the Austin school district, where she also served as a high-school assistant principal. She taught speech in the Ysleta school district and was a lecturer at both UTEP and El Paso Community College.

Mena has bachelor’s and master’s of arts degrees from UTEP and is completing her doctorate at Grand Canyon University.

EPISD is working hand-in-hand with the Center Against Sexual and Family Violence (CASFV) to bring an educational program for students at Andress High School.

The empOURment program is focused on teaching students primary prevention, which addresses inequality as the root case for sexual violence.

“The goal is to teach students how to build skills around healthy communication and empathy,” said CASFV Primary Prevention Coordinator Kacie Fountain. “It’s important for us to start having conversations that help students understand each other better, respect each other and build empathy sooner. If we do that, we’re able to create a sense of equality for both boys and girls that will ultimately reduce sexual violence in our communities.”

CASFV and EPISD worked together to choose a community that had the elements to help the unique program thrive.

“While primary prevention would have been equally successful in any school, Andress was uniquely suited due to their capacity to sustain long term programming and the enthusiastic welcome that the Northeast has given to CASFV,” Fountain said.

The program is divided into three different parts, starting with a nine-week session at the school for phase I. CASFV facilitators visited with students twice a week for one hour during health class to talk about different topics, such as building community, relationships and communication.

CASFV staff noticed a marked change in the students after the first phase of the program neared completion.

“The students have shared that they feel more confident that there are adults in their lives who truly care about the difficulties and challenges they face as young people,” Fountain said. “Through difficult discussions they were able to understand that while their life experiences may be different, some of the challenges they face have similar impacts on their lives. This helps us all build a stronger understanding of what equality means, thus reducing sexual violence in our communities.”

Phase II will kick off next semester with a student-led club, which will choose a project geared at creating community awareness to prevent sexual violence.

“The goal is to work with community members, parents and the school to reinforce what they are learning in the classroom,” Fountain said.

The third part of the program will be to continue community level work, with students reaching out to local stakeholders and fostering community ownership of prevention programming.

The program began in October and is wrapping up in November with a recap of everything they learned over the course of the nine weeks.

More than 100 Andress students participated in the program.

The journey to become a college quarterback is usually a long one, with several twists, dips and turns along the way. Sometimes those events happen much quicker than expected, and nobody knows that tale better than UTEP Freshman QB Ryan Metz.

Metz found his way into the starting role at UTEP in a unconventional way. Metz was third on the depth chart behind Mack Leftwich and Jarrett Simpson. Nary a mention during Camp Ruidoso, when the Quarterback Question was asked.

He entered the game against rival New Mexico State after Leftwich suffered a concussion. His first pass attempt resulted in an interception returned for a touchdown by the Aggies. Welcome to D1 football, Mr. Metz.

But he then led the Miners out of  a 14-point deficit to a 50 to 47 overtime win.

Then, in his first career start, Metz again worked his magic in UTEP’s home opener against Incarnate Word, rallying the Miners to score 17-unanswered points to secure the win.

He’s been at his best when asked to throw the ball and has done it looking cool, calm and collected. Metz admits that he’s anything but calm, he actually gets nervous, so nervous the only thing he can think of is making the best play.

But it’s his performance off the field that reveals who Metz is.

As Metz approaches the media for interviews, he’ll extend and shake everyone’s hand to greet them, he then does the same when the interviewing is done.  Another example of the humble demeanor that Metz presents.

And that is something rarely seen in athletes, especially one as young as he is.

The Andress alumns isn’t afraid of express his faith, either and openly gives thanks to God for the opportunity he’s been given. Metz isn’t the first student-athlete to be open about his religious believes. College athletics has seen it at a much higher profile with former Heisman trophy winner, Tim Tebow. But it again speaks volumes on exactly who Metz is, starting role or not.

Metz’s wears number 12, his favorite quarterback Tom Brady, also wears number 12. By no means is Metz at the same level of quarterbacking, but like Brady, he’s shown a knack for the comeback win.

For what it’s worth, it could be his admiration for Brady, his faith, the nerves or simply the respect he has for his coaches, teammates, the game and even media alike that aids Metz to perform when his number 12 is called.

Head coach, Sean Kugler has emphasized the importance of recruiting in El Paso, he may have found his quarterback in Metz following that very philosophy.

Kugler has praised Metz for his leadership and poise, despite being a Freshman.

Metz may never become as prolific as Brady, or he may not win a Heisman like Tebow, but he’s leading the way for a wounded Miners team that saw its starting running back and quarterback go down on consecutive weeks.

It will be that same demeanor that could propel the Miners into a successful season in 2015.