Batavia Wind Symphony to perform at SuperState festival
Congratulations are in order for the Batavia Wind Symphony, which was selected to perform Saturday, May 6, at the 2017 Illinois SuperState Concert Band Festival.
For those in the high school music business, this event is considered a state championship event - the best bands in Lincolnland showing off their skills for the right to become an "Honor Band." Earning that label allows the band to come back at a later date for a feature concert.
In any case, Batavia High School knows a little bit about this routine. Its bands have been invited to compete four times in the past, but this year's event marks the first time the school's wind band has earned a spot among the elite since 2000.
The Batavia Wind Symphony was only one of six Class 3A schools to be invited.
Learning bike safety:
Batavia police officer Emil Jensen will spend some time in the school district's elementary schools next week. He'll be helping the Batavia Bicycle Commission spread the word to kids about bike safety and the importance of wearing a helmet.
Ever since bikes were created, those who ride them often have to share the roads with automobiles. Thus, the information that officer Jensen has to share can easily be categorized as potentially "life saving."
The carnival truth:
After driving by the spring carnival that was recently set up along Randall Road in the Gander Mountain parking lot, it reminded me of two things:
First, the summer festival season is right around the corner.
Second, even though it is great to see kids doing something other than staring at their cellphones, it is beyond me how anyone finds carnival rides fun.
My experience says to get spun around or turned upside down equals getting sick. Apparently, those sensations don't affect everyone the same.
No bull on sitting:
Because my job calls for a significant amount of sitting completing tasks like interviews, research and writing, it seems that all of these recent warnings about the dangers of sitting are directed at me.
Some of these studies say no amount of exercise can help you when you sit all day long, others say you need to exercise about an hour for every six hours you sit on your rump.
How did the medical experts figure this out, after all of these years in which so many jobs call for us to be chained to a desk with a computer screen perched in front of our faces?
My guess is that they, well, sat around a long time trying to figure this out. After realizing how debilitating it was to study the topic of sitting - by sitting a long time - they pieced together some research papers on the findings.
dheun@sbcglobal.net