Jeff Duncan: “I rise today to honor a fine group of sixth graders from my district in Tennessee. The Maryville Intermediate School…”

“I rise today to honor a fine group of sixth graders from my district in Tennessee. The Maryville Intermediate School Sixth Grade Wind Ensemble Band from Maryville, Tennessee, is headed to Chicago for the prestigious 2007 Midwest Clinic, an international band and orchestra concert. The event is known in band and orchestra circles as one of the highest honors a musical group can receive. They were chosen to participate only after an extensive audition process in which they competed against other bands and orchestras from high schools, communities, colleges and universities and militaries from around the world. This is certainly a great achievement in and of itself. But the Maryville band is special in another way; they are the first sixth grade band in the Clinic's 61-year history to be invited to participate. It is an honor that the close-knit community of Maryville can be proud of, and just another example of the incredible spirit of the people of east Tennessee. Madam Speaker, in closing, I urge my colleagues to join me as I salute Maryville Intermediate School's Wind Ensemble Band and its directors, George Hayden and RoAnn Romines, on this much-deserved accomplishment. I wish them many more musical scores to come.”