On Mar. 29-30, 2008, the Churchill High School drumline, pit and colorguard competed at the Winter Guard International (WGI) contest in Temecula, CA. Competing against seven other Scholastic World Percussion groups, Churchill placed fourth.

There are three classes in WGI percussion: A Class, Open Class and World Class. World Class is the top tier, an elite category of skill sets and musicality.

"They got a feel for how tough competition is, and how important it is to play well all the time," said Chris Retschulte, Churchill director of percussion. "I think the kids did a lot of growing up—musically and mentally—this weekend, and I know they look forward to applying that experience next week in Dayton, Ohio for the WGI National competition." Three of the top four performing teams from the Temecula competition will attend the 2008 WGI Percussion World Championships to be held Apr. 17-19 in Dayton.

In addition, Churchill's fourth place score of 90.7 was one of the top five scores in the country from that weekend of tournaments.

Churchill invites the community to an exhibition of the WGI Indoor Percussion show titled "Industrial Remix" on Sunday, Apr. 13 at 5 p.m. in the school's gym.