Shenandoah, Mahanoy bands perform for upper Dauphin crowd at Gratz Fair
KAYLEE LINDENMUTH / SHENANDOAH SENTINEL - The Shenandoah Valley Marching Band performs during the Gratz Fair.
GRATZ, Dauphin County – Two local bands made the trip to upper Dauphin County Friday to join bands from there, western Schuylkill, and southern Northumberland County as they performed at the Gratz Fair.
While band day at the fair stretches back many decades, Shenandoah has performed at the fair for just over a single decade.
Until recently, the Blue Devil band was a geographic oddity, being the only band from outside the Gratz region performing. In the past few years, Mahanoy Area and North Schuylkill joined the Devils, though the Spartans did not make the trip this year.
All participating bands — which also included Halifax, Tri-Valley, Line Mountain, Upper Dauphin, Millersburg, and Williams Valley — performed their field show music individually before joining together as one mass band to perform patriotic tunes.
One such tune was a medley of the official songs of the Armed Forces. As each song played, a member of a participating band or color guard paraded past the grandstand with the branch’s flag and asked any veterans in attendance to stand and be recognized.
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