The 25 members of Astoria High School’s marching band used to worry that a group as small and as new as theirs would be way out of its league in a mass halftime show with larger, more experienced bands.

Their performance at the Emerald Bowl in San Francisco Dec. 30 knocked that worry right out of the field.

Band director Tracy Hafer and marching instructors Tom and Kathleen Strecker, along with chaperone Lois Grothe, took the band on the five-day bus trip organized by Bowl Games of America, which presents halftime entertainment at college football bowl games. “Our kids were absolutely exemplary,” Tom Strecker said. “They found out that they really are on a par with any marching band out there.”

Submitted photo by TOM STRECKER

The 25-member Astoria High School Marching Band poses with their Emerald Bowl commemorative plaque in their San Francisco hotel.Astoria was joined on the field by the 90-member Cypress High School Centurions, plus a 100-member dance troupe. The horn players and drummers stood in a block formation and played two medleys of surf rock tunes such as “Surfin’ U.S.A.” and “Barbara Ann,” while colorguard members danced with beach balls and a colorful parachute – all in a pouring rainstorm.

Students also got to shop and sightsee in the Fisherman’s Wharf area of town, visit the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz Island, attend a formal dinner and dance at the hotel and enjoy a private dinner party at the Hard Rock Cafe.