Consider this an open thread for your thoughts on the OETA show or other issues of this BEDLAM week.  Comment away! (No registration required.)

Pride Sleigh Ride (1989)

Band Bedlam premieres Thursday, December 1, at 7:00 PM (CST) on the stations of OETA. It will be rebroadcast Saturday, December 3 (Bedlam Day!) at 6:30 AM.  If you get OETA’s digital sub channels (like KETA-DT 13-2 in Oklahoma City, available over Cox Cable HD service and via antenna), you can also see it on Friday, December 2 at 8:30 AM or 4:00 PM, or Saturday, December 3 at 1:00 PM or 4:30 PM.  Dish Network and DirecTV subscribers without antennas do not receive the subchannels, plus you really want to watch it Thursday night anyway.

Don’t believe me? Look at the embedded video below, which is the first minute of the program. If you donated to OETA, you should have received December’s Odyssey program guide by now, which includes a cover story about the program, too. A lot of the scenes in this video should look verrrrry familiar to you, and now the rest of the state gets a chance to see what you saw. Here’s a preview:

“Band Bedlam” Preview Clip

All three games will be telecast by ESPN on ABC.  I’m sure the OSU game will be nationally televised, given the BCS implications, but you can check here after Thursday of each week to see how ESPN/ABC plan to handle national and regional coverage in your area.

Coming later this week: more on “Band Bedlam,” notes about Monday’s final symphonic wind concert of the semester, and whatever else comes up that we find and you might want to know. BCS expert Jerry Palm now predicts, on his subscription site CollegeBCS.com, that the BCS National Championship game will be LSU vs. Oklahoma. In New Orleans. Talk about a classic case of good news-bad news!

That deserves more good news, so here’s another poster for “Band Bedlam:”

Kickoff is at 2:30 PM. The game will either be on your local ABC station (as it will here in Oklahoma), or on ESPN2. Check here later this week for ESPN’s full coverage map and exact Dish Network/DIRECTV channel numbers. (Satellite customers get several “ESPN Alternate” channels because, unlike local cable companies, the satellite providers can’t switch what you seen on “ESPN” or “ESPN2″ based on your region. In those cases, you can usually at least see the game in standard definition on one of the “alternate” channels. If not, you’ll have to use ESPN3 or the pay-per-view ESPN GamePlan.)

• The weather
• The delays
• The final score

And now the good:

• Section 29
• Section 36
• Pregame
• Halftime
• Never quitting
• Being a Sooner

Despite the final score, I was very proud yesterday to be associated with both The Pride and OUBAA. No one who was there could doubt how traditions and champions are built.

Tell us what you think—add your own comments, no registration required!

1972 Pride of Oklahoma drum major

That was our good friend, the late Mel Penn. He’s only been gone six months but we still miss him greatly.

starting an alumni band association

You know, that’s an interesting question.  OUBAA was founded in 1954, 50 years after The Pride of Oklahoma first took the field, so none of our current officers was involved in the formation.  You might ask Rita Heath if she has any suggestions, and any other officers who want to volunteer can pipe up in the comments.  I’d also suggest talking to some other strong university band alumni associations (Michigan comes to mind; they publish a very slick alumni band newsletter/magazine).

meredith sigler twirler

Is she ever! Meredith Sigler ended her reign as the Pride’s Feature Twirler after the 2008 season.  This year, Megan McGeary returns for her third year as feature twirler for the Pride of Oklahoma, coming off a summer where she placed second overall in the national “Miss Majorette” competition, where she also took first place nationally in the twirling-only portion of that competition.  Way to go, Megan! [Ed: Yes, this originally had some names backward.  My apologies to both Meredith and Megan. It's been a long week!]

OU football homecoming date

Still October 22, 2011.  I think we get a lot of people looking for it because we’re on top of it because, as the alumni band, we have to be. It’s the job.

[several queries for "poster," "pictures," etc.]

We’ve posted several 11″ by 17″ posters for OU symphonic wind concerts in advance of the performances, but to my knowledge, there are no “poster-size” posters of either The Pride or OUBAA images currently for sale.  Some Pride images are licensed by Sooner Sports Properties, so merchants that sell official OU logo merchandise may also have posters that include The Pride—but I’m not aware of any.  A few years ago, one of the student organizations sold pictures of a giant interlocking OU on the field as a fundraiser, but that ended the same year.  if I hear of anything, I’ll let you know.

As for pictures—the band department has a huge number of high-quality photos that they have put in the public domain, but this summer saw a revamp of the bands.ou.edu web site to use a spiffy content management system (kind of like the one that drives our new site but different to suit their different needs), and the pictures have not yet made the transition.  I’m sure they will at some point, so please have patience with them.  The first game is this Saturday (did I mention that?), so they’re a bit swamped this week!  :-)

Click this button to see and buy it:

Boomer and some other rah-rahs have been in the iTunes Store for several years, but the copyright was for “Sooner Sports Properties.”  This time, the copyright is “℗ 2011 University of Oklahoma Bands,” where “℗” is the symbol for a copyrighted phono recording (the things you learn in this job).

As with all current iTunes Store music, it’s free of copy-protection, but the royalties go to the band department, so please get all your friends to buy 57 copies each.  (Well, now that Apple is rolling out its iCloud thing, it probably won’t let you buy it more than once, so just get more friends to buy them.)

If you have some aversion to Apple products, as some people do, you can also get the album from Amazon.com’s MP3 download service by clicking on this link: Rah-Rah! Boomer Sooner, Oklahoma, Fight For O.K.U. and More!

At this writing, Amazon’s price is $1 cheaper than Apple’s. I wish I knew if that meant The Pride would get less money for an Amazon sale, but I don’t know.  I suspect it does; I also suspect that due to royalty agreements, even if I asked, they wouldn’t be allowed to tell me.  But one way or another, if you or your friends don’t own this definitive Rah-Rah album that the radio stations use all the time during football season, then get it now! Supplies are not limited, but neither is Sooner Spirit!