On Sept. 14, 2025, the Grayslake Central High School marching band won first place in their field at the Knights Marching Tournament at Grayslake North High School. The win was met with much enthusiasm from the band, not because it was just any win, but because it was a first for the band program. The win made history as it was the first time that the marching band, also known as the Marching Rams, had won first place in their grouping. “The Marching Rams have never won their class outright,” said band director Kamal Talukder. “We’ve always got either second or third in our class. So we’ve never won it, unless we were the only band in the class.” Mr. Talukder noted how he had looked at all the trophies in the Marching Rams’ history and how he had never seen a trophy that was given for first place. Now, that record has been broken.The Marching Rams beat two other schools in their group: Round Lake High School and McHenry High School. According to Mr. Talukder, the bands are classified by how big the bands are, then put into the classifications of Field 1A, Field 2A, or Field 3A, which increase in size, respectively. “In the last two years, we’ve been competing in Class 2A or Class 1A. This year, with the size of our band, we’ve been very sizably in Class 3A, so we’ve been competing against other, larger bands,” said Mr. Talukder. Competing against two other large bands just made the win all the more special for the Marching Rams.

During competitions, after the bands are grouped by size, they perform in front of a panel of judges. The judges then give feedback and give the band a score. Once all the bands at the competition have performed, all of the scores are compared, and the bands with the highest scores in their groups win.

“We were super happy [when we won],” said Marching Rams member and senior Tessa Klemp. “It’s been a really long time since we’ve won anything that good.”

Mr. Talukder is very proud of his students and their win, and continues to have high hopes for the future of the GCHS band program. “I hope that we continue to grow,” said Mr. Talukder. “I hope that we continue to build on this culture of acceptance, love, commitment… this culture where we continue to push each other to reach our potential, but we also help each other. I hope that that’s what continues to grow, and I know that if we continue to do that, we will continue to see successes like this one.”