NATCHITOCHES –Thirty-two high school marching bands from Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi are scheduled to compete in the 2009 Northwestern State University Marching Contest Saturday, Oct. 31 beginning at 9 a.m. at Turpin Stadium. Admission is $5. The “Spirit of Northwestern” Marching Band will perform at 6 p.m. followed by the awards ceremony at 6:30 p.m.

     Participating bands will compete in four classifications with an overall grand champion selected along with a top band in each class.

     Schools competing in class I will be: Many, Bossier, Caldwell Parish, Pickering and Merryville.

     Class II participants are Tioga, Grant, Leesville, Delcambre, Pineville, Central, North Vermilion, Port Allen, Kaplan, Ouachita Parish, Hooks (Texas), Ashdown (Ark.), Abbeville and Alto (Texas).

     Bands in Class III are Sam Houston, Pleasant Grove (Texas), West Ouachita, Canton (Texas), Zachary, Atlanta (Texas), Mabank (Texas), Barbe, Haughton and Ruston.

     Schools competing in Class IV are R.E. Lee (Texas), Airline and Parkway.

     Adjudicators will be Rey Meza of San Antonio, Jim McDaniel of Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD in Carrollton, Texas, Tom Shine of Duncanville High in Duncanville, Texas, Estelle Gravois of Fort Worth, Chris Whorton of Kearns, Texas and Thom Hannum of Hadley, Mass.