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Student holding sign.
Brentwood Welcomes Home Green Machine Champions

The streets of Brentwood were filled with cheers, flashing lights and community pride on Monday evening as the Brentwood High School Green Machine Marching Band returned home from Syracuse after capturing first place in the New York State Field Band Conference Championships.

Director Joseph Sitler, who will retire at the end of this year, said that everything gets filtered through the lens of: “This is my last time.”

“It’s been such an awesome season with a bunch of great kids, and a great staff to work with,” he said. “This is it for me – I’ll be retiring at the end of the school year, and I’m sure we have the people in place that will continue the excellence of the Green Machine.”

The Green Machine on Sunday earned an impressive score of 92 to secure the top spot in the Large School 2 Division and swept all major categories — Music, Overall Effect and Visual Performance.

Families, friends and neighbors lined the streets near Brentwood High School to welcome the students home. Balloons and hand-painted signs waved in the night air as sirens from the Brentwood Fire Department and Brentwood Legion Ambulance led the band through town in a proud hometown escort.

The band’s performance, titled “Toil and Transcendence,” marked the culmination of a season that inspired the community and cemented the Green Machine’s reputation as one of the state’s premier marching bands.

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