By: Annie Jackson

Photo By: Chloe Armstrong

The metronome is clicking. The second-quarter of Truman’s first home football game just ended. As the guard is making their way out on the field, Truman sophomore Allison Jackson, guard member for two years, is ready to perform. “I love the feeling of the excitement before performing,” Jackson said. She and many other guard members love the aspect of performing for hundreds of people.  After the marching band’s performance everyone goes back in the stands ready to cheer on the football team.

The Truman High School Color Guard does not put together their flawless performance overnight. There is lots of preparation, hard work, and dedication that goes into being on the team. With practices that started at the end of May, the guard has made a lot of progress and is still getting better as the year progresses.

With months and months of practice, the color guard starts off with auditions. For two Mondays and two Tuesdays near the end of May and beginning of June, the students interested in being on the team go to practices to learn the routine that will be performed for auditions. This season everyone that tried out made the team.

After these auditions, the girls and guys started almost weekly practices. Within these practices, the guard worked on their fundamentals so they would be ready to start adding movements and drill to their work in band camp. Band camp is eight hours a day, five days a week from the end of July to early August. On the first day, the guard was given their drill charts so they could start learning their placements. All through the week, the team added all of the pages to the first movement onto the show.

When the first day of school rolled around, the guard was almost ready for their first performance. With only a few practices before the first football game, the team worked so hard to get the performance to look amazing. Even with only a few months of practice, the color guard team managed to pull off a great performance.