Historic highs and lows drive the Mustang Band to march forward this season
The Mustang Band’s low brass players practice the school fight song during summer band camp. Staff photos by Caden Senn
The Marble Falls High School Mustang Band did not have a stellar conclusion to its marching season last year.
Coming off a monumental year in 2024 that landed the band in the state marching finals for the first time in the program’s history, the 2025 season was lackluster to say the least.
Missed berths in competitions, a rough performance at regionals, and technique that just wasn’t meshing were among the crux of the season’s failures.
But, with a fresh class of new Mustangs and a hefty reality check, just about everyone in the band believes that great things are to come this year.
“I think we’ve already had that moment of feeling like we’re back on day one of our summer camp,” Head Director Anthony Leflet told DailyTrib. “It just feels different. It feels like a different level of commitment. It feels like without us having to really discuss what happened last year, everybody understands that we had a little mix up, and they don’t want that again.”
The director isn’t alone in his beliefs either. Band president and flute section leader Hailey Barnes told DailyTrib that last season was both a wake-up call and a source of fuel for the marching Mustangs.
“We went from having historical success to historical failure, and it was just really bad for everybody,” she said. “But I think that’s what’s going to push everybody this year to keep trying to grow and not be satisfied with what we’ve done. My goal is to help lead us to the success that we want.”
Barnes’ fellow saxophone section leader, Cullen O’Neill, also feels the weight of last season on his shoulders and believes that this year’s success will be built on working together.
“My personal goal, first off, is to do better than last year,” he said. “But on top of that, just get the band to be more together. Last year, everyone started to fall apart a little bit, and then it just went downhill.”
Director Leflet echoed many similar feelings, but acknowledged that the process of rebounding was not something that could happen overnight.
“One of the things that we talked about, as far as next steps, was just setting more short term goals,” he told DailyTrib. “Daily improvement. Weekly improvement. Getting to region, and making sure it’s not going to be a barrier for us. It’s all one step at a time.”
One of those first chances for daily improvement, Leflet said, was summer band camp.
Facing the grueling, at times triple-digit heat in the middle of some of the hottest months in Texas all in the name of improvement may sound bleak. But, as Leflet said, “you get used to it.”
Of course, chasing a berth at the state marching contest isn’t the only goal many young marchers have when they decide to pick up their instruments each day to face the blazing sun.
Section leaders Barnes and O’Neill both cited their love of band events, competitions, travel, and Friday night football games as a few of many reasons they decide to wake up every morning and continue marching on.
Mustang alum and summer marching camp volunteer Jimena Meza told DailyTrib that her love of band in middle and high school is what catapulted her into chasing a career in music at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
“I was a drum major for two years, I was band president, and I was flute section leader,” she said. “I was doing it all, because to me, this was a career that I wanted to do. I wanted to be exactly like my directors.”
As for what the community can do in the midst of the Mustangs’ hefty rebound year, Leflet said that being there to see the kids’ work would be the key to their success.
“Show up, and applaud, and cheer,” he said. “The Friday night machine tends to focus on football, which is understandable. But there’s other parts of Friday night with the band there and the Starlettes there. So just show up, be there, support, clap, cheer us on, let us know that you heard us, and let us know that you saw us.”
Be sure to follow along with the Mustang Band’s season by attending one of the many football games or tournaments throughout the end of the year, or by following their social media which can be found under the “communication” tab on their website.
