In the fall, Color Guard is a part of the halftime shows at football games with the band, but the group transitions to winter guard for its competitive season. 

“Winter Guard is an opportunity for us as a color guard to branch away from the band a little bit and present our own program basically,” Color guard coach Scott Mills said. “So we pick our own musical composition, we have a floor, we get flags, and we perform in gyms. We generally sign up to compete at four to six competitions throughout the season so we will rehearse two to three times a week in preparation for those competitions. So once we feel, you know, once we get the show together then we’ll take our show. We’ll take our costumes, our floor, our props, over to whatever school we are competing at and we will have a normal show.”

For senior Lauren Grissom, the best part of Winter Guard is seeing it all come together and performing the final product. 

“i just like performing. It’s really cool to like to hone a talent to you know kind of get really good at something and then be able to show it off to people, especially to other people who really care about it,” Grissom said. “That’s why now that we’re doing virtual performances it’ll be a little harder because we won’t have the crowd giving us that kind of energy. We’re gonna just be performing for ourselves, which is great, still performing for yourselves is something that you should really be proud of. You should perform first for yourself, and then for other people. I’m kind of excited to be performing again because our season got cut short last year and i’m ready to get back in it.”

Even with all of the changes color guard has seen this year, both Mills and Grissom are more excited than worried about this season.

“I would have to say I’m actually not as worried as I thought I was going to be,” Mills said. “We, just this year’s group, are so adaptable and I’ve learned that we can be a lot more resilient than we think we can be. So initially there’s always the concern of everythings different how we are going to handle it. But just watching how we handled all of the changes so far i’m very confident that we can handle anything else that comes our way, so i don’t really have anything that i’m worry about other than just the normal are we gonna get everything done on time, are we gonna all catch our rifles, and just general things everybody worries about every day, but nothing different for this season. I’m pretty excited just to kind of see everything come together.”

Grissom also feels prepared for the Winter Guard season. 

“I don’t think I’m really concerned about anything, Grissom said. “I think Mr. Mills, our director, has done a really good job at making things as normal as possible. We still get rehearsals outside of school which is good, we would not survive without rehearsals outside of school. class time is, over time it’s gotten more normal like. So we’ve got that kind of consistency back which is what guard is all about, consistency and making sure you’re comfortable with things so i’m not really nervous for anything. I’m more excited than anything.”