Members of the Harlan Community High School and Junior High Bands will be performing this (Tuesday) evening, for Veterans in Omaha. The Veterans with an organization called Heartland Honor Flights will be taking a trip to Washington D.C. Wednesday and this evening the band will play as part of the pre-flight dinner for the Veterans. Harlan Community Band Instructor Chaz Neuvirth says the kids are very excited to perform.

“It’s going to be about 300 Veterans at the Ramada Inn Convention Center in Omaha. They have a lot of festivities going on with dinner and entertainment. They called us because we have a good number of local Veterans going to be there and they recommended the Harlan Cyclone band to perform.”

The band is coming off state and all-state contest so they have only been able to practice three times prior to the event this evening. He says the reason the junior high band members were invited was because of a choir concert tonight in Harlan. “So I didn’t want to take any students away from the choir concert so I invited the junior high band as well. We have about 70 kids going tonight between high school and junior high.”

The performance tonight in Omaha comes on the heels of a successful state concert where the band received a 1 rating and all-state contest. “Choir had twelve students try out and had seven make it. They have been working since the summer on the tunes they need to do and working hard each morning. We had five students try out in band and Jacob Lemons made it on the sax. He has been working on that for a few years and he did a great job this past weekend. He will experience the All-State festival which is November 21^st through the 23^rd.”

(Joel McCall/KNOD)