Photos belong to the ADM High School Band

The Adel-DeSoto-Minburn High School Marching Band took home a good amount of hardware at the 2025 North Central Invitational in Fort Dodge in late September.

According to Band Director Russell Braun, the ADM Marching Band were named the Grand Champions, taking home seven awards in a field of eight other schools. He expresses that students Aubree Timmer, Devin Morey, and Audrey Hysell were recognized as the Best Drum Majors; with the rest of the awards being Best Woodwinds, Best Drumline, Best Marching, Best Color Guard, Class 3A Champion, and Grand Champion. Braun is incredibly proud of each student at the competition.

“We’re pretty blessed in Iowa to have some amazing school systems. And so our students, they’re hardworking, they have this motivation that really just drives them. And we just keep talking about ‘What’s one thing we can do better?’ ‘What’s one way we can grow musically?’ Every day, we’re just trying to improve a little bit here and a little bit there, and the students have really just kind of bought into that and it’s not only paid off in band, but has paid off in all of their academics and all of their sports.”

Braun details that the theme for this year’s show in Fort Dodge was “Under the Red Hood,” based on the story of the “Little Red Riding Hood.” He explains the reason behind the show choice was because he believed that the band could tell the story in an artistic way, plus he wanted to throw in both traditional and contemporary music. Braun outlines there are 120 students apart of the band this year and that they will next compete in Alleman at North Polk High School tomorrow with the performance set for 5:30pm.