Pottstown Middle School in the Winner's Circle

Photos courtesy of John Armato

Blogger's Note: The following was provided by John Armato, director of community relations for the Pottstown School District.

Trojan Proud of the 45 members of our middle school Boys and Girls Track Team. 

These student athletes spend many after school hours preparing for competition.

Recently their hard work paid off with a double victory over Perkiomen Valley West. 

The boys won 82 to 46 and the girls won 71 to 46. 

On the girls side Tamya Jarret won both the 100 and 200 meters. 

Stephanie Taylor won the shot put, Oralee Wilson won the 400 meter, and Savannah Richards won

the 55 meter hurdles and the 100 meter in her weight class. 

The girls open 4x100 team also won with a time of 58 seconds. 

For the boys Rasheen Bostic won both the 100 and 200 meters. 

Joneil Oister won the long jump with an incredible jump of 17’10.” 

Adam Green won the open hurdles, Ian Salisbury won the 1600, Devon Green won the shot put, and Ethan Masewicz won the high jump. 

The boys open 4x100 team also won with a great time of 47.96 seconds.

Thank you to our coaches who not only teach skills but serve as role models for our students. 

Competing with pride and sportsmanship our students gave us all another reason to say, Proud to be from Pottstown.

They've Got Rhythm

Photo by Evan Brandt

Pottstown High School Jazz Band's rhythm section with their award, from left, are Jake Fetterman, Connor Christman, Maxine Bacon, Eddie Butler, Cole Sellers and Jake Wunderlich.

For its third consecutive jazz competition, the Pottstown High School Jazz Band's rhythm section was

named the best Friday night.

The award was given at the conclusion of the 15th Annual Valley Jazz fest, held at Perkiomen Valley Middle School West.

Pottstown was rated as "Outstanding," along with five other bands, and two of its soloists, trombonist Sherif Mohamed, and saxophonist Marley Bryan, were singled out, each earning an honorable mention award.

I have featured videos of Pottstown's performances at other jazz fests here many times. I will upload all three performances onto my YouTube channel and you can watch them there.

(They are worth watching. The kids played very well.)

But they also changed out one of their numbers and substituted "Buy It and Fry It" in its place, so I've embedded that video here:



The only other local band to participate in the judged portion of the program was Phoenixville High School's jazz band, which also earned an "Outstanding" rating.

The entrance to Perkiomen Valley Middle School West.

(They were on first and I arrived too late to get any video of their performance.)

Phoenixville trumpet player Donnie Jackson was also one of the three to earn a soloist award.

The second soloist award went to trumpet player Josh Weckerly from the North Penn High School Navy Band.

The third soloist award went to Logan Mohr, tenor saxophonist, from the New Hope-Solebury Jazz Ensemble.

Alto saxophonist Natalie Parker from the Quakertown Community High School Jazz Ensemble also earned an honorable mention as a soloist.

Photo by Evan Brandt

The judges at Friday night's Jazz Fest in Perkomen Valley.

Chief Judge for the night was Dick Scott, a retired music educator and the former Jazz Band Administrator for the Cavalcade of Bands, which sponsored the evening.

Glen Brumbach, director of bands at Boyertown Area Senior High School, was the second judge and the third judge was Marc Jacoby, an associate professor of music at West Chester University.

The following bands also participated and received a rating of "Outstanding:"

• Central Bucks South
• Methacton
• Pennridge
• New Hope-Solebury

North Penn Navy and Quakertown High School's jazz band earned the only two "Superior" ratings of the night and Pennridge Lab Band earned a rating of "Excellent."

Photo by Evan Brandt
The Perkiomen Valley High School and Middle School West
Jazz bands performing "Forget You" together on stage.

Because they were the hosts, Perkiomen Valley High School's Jazz Band performed but was not rated as part of the competition.

Also performing in the pit during stage changes, was the jazz band from Perkiomen Valley Middle School West, directed by Dawn Krown.

In a nice gesture, the two bands played their final number, "Forget You" together on stage as a single band.

Here is that video:

The second piece by the Perk Valley band was "If I Could" by one of my personal favorites, Pat Metheny. The soloist, on alto saxophone, was Sarah Fonda.

Here is the video:

They began their performance with "The Chicken," an odd enough-sounding title.

Soloists in this piece were Will Turner on guitar and Brian Christman on tenor saxophone.



I did shoot video of all three performances by the Perkiomen Middle School West Jazz Band as well, but I am not going to embed them here, mostly because its nearly 1 a.m.

They can be found on my YouTube channel at some point in the next 24 hours.