When Joel Matthews was a student at Eastern High School, he never had an opportunity to compete in the Indiana State School Music Association state finals.

Today, he will take his first trip to the state finals with Eastern, as the band’s director.

Eastern, Western and Lewis Cass’ bands are among the 40 competing for state championships today at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.

Ten bands will compete in each of four classes, which are based on school size.

Western’s Marching Panthers were Class C champions in 2008, while Lewis Cass’ Marching Kings were Class D champions in 2007. Eastern competes in Class D.

Directors from all three schools said they were focused this week on final details in their shows and preparing for the competition.

Matthews said he reviewed the list of judges and comments made by those judges earlier in the season, to address any deficiencies they identified.

Eastern guard member Angie Smith said they’ve done “a lot of drill and cleaning of the work” during practices.

Drum major Kayla Lamb said the Comet Command and Golden Guard’s goal is “just to have our best show of the season, and that’s all we can ask for. We can never know what the judges are thinking.”

Percussion member Micah Detweiler Jr. said it’s a big deal to go to the state finals.

“It’s a feeling of accomplishment you really don’t get in many other activities. It’s a huge deal to make it into state because we haven’t done it that often.”

At Lewis Cass, this is the 28th year in a row the band has qualified for state, according to director Mike Clark. He said the students understand that qualifying for state is not a given, though, and work hard to achieve it.

This week, he said, “We are trying to get the kids to reach a higher level of performance, to demand more of themselves, and gain more maturity, to make them to where they don’t tolerate mistakes.”

He said they added some final pieces to the show this week.

“There are big changes, I think the audience is going to go nutso.”

Clark’s goal is that the students leave the field feeling they could not have done any better.

“I do not care if they finish 10th. I don’t care as long as when they leave the field, they have done their best performance, they have performed to the audience, they have created a show that left the audience wowed. I really don’t care where they score or finish, and the kids are quite aware of that fact.”

Lewis Cass senior Audrey Michaels said the excitement of performing at state is “kind of indescribable.”

She said it gets more exciting every year, and her goal is to have their best performance yet.

Senior Brynn Stewart agreed, saying he hopes they give their best performance, but “it would be great to bring home another championship.”

At Western, woodwind instructor Dan Healton said after several days of having to work around weather conditions to practice outside, the band is looking forward to performing inside, under perfect weather conditions.

He said this week has been detail week.

Flute player Jaymee Mills said she looks forward to the final performance of the season and “seeing what the whole state thinks of our performance and our band.”

Clarinet player Alyssa Major said it meant a lot to her to go back to state, as a senior.

“This is going to be my last chance to go to Lucas Oil Stadium and perform. I’m looking forward to going out there and putting forth what I’ve worked for all season.”

• Danielle Rush is the Kokomo Tribune education reporter. She can be reached at 765-454-8585 or danielle.rush@kokomotribune.com.

Performance schedule

These are the performance times for the three Kokomo-area bands competing in the Indiana State School Music Association state finals today in Lucas Oil Stadium.

Class C

1:44 p.m. Western

3:15 p.m. (apx.) Awards

Class D

4:36 p.m. Eastern

5:41 p.m. Lewis Cass

6:20 p.m. (apx.) Awards