Sam Walker: An All-State Underdog

By Kai Neuberger

This year, despite all its challenges, another underdog has stepped forward—this time, a member of our Owasso band. Samuel “Sam” Walker is a junior here at Owasso High School (OHS) who has been a part of our band program for six years now. Originally starting on the trumpet, he was moved to french horn part way through his first year. Throughout his time in our program, his favorite piece has been “Feast Day in Seville” in which he had a solo. This year, he’s placed fourth chair in his section for All-State. What is All-State you ask? 

Well, Walker describes it as,  “A collection of people who play instruments who each go through a rigorous audition process to get in. It is statewide. It’s kind of like the “Hunger Games”—you want to place high so that you get better things to benefit you through the process. Kind of like a death match.”

 It’s been a long process, but thus far over the course of the audition, he’s practiced for at least eighty hours.

“Last year, [about the beginning of his sophomore year,] we got the music for round one of the All-State auditions. For round two, we had four weeks to prepare and play.”

Photo taken by Kai Neuburger

Although he has made attempts to get into the program before, this is the first year he’s actually made it and he has plans to try out for the program again next year.

“Last year I didn’t perform well at all,” he says, “This year, I didn’t make it into All-Region [another competition/program]. In round one, I didn’t really do good either, so it was looking all doom and gloom, but then I tried really hard and placed really well in [the] second round.”

Through his practice and hard work in the second round, he surprised himself and the other people around him with just how well he could do. It just goes to show that if you put enough time and effort in, anything is possible. The hard work isn’t over yet, though, as the program isn’t happening until January 21-23. Only this year, it’s over a Zoom call to help keep everyone safe in these difficult times.