The Big Win For Color Guard

In the band and color guard’s first competition at Carl Junction on September 17, 2022 the color guard won the award for “Best Guard.” 

The Fair Grove Color Guard was given this award based on the judges giving them a rating on their performance and their choreography. The team is also compared to other teams competing for the title of “Best Guard” and the title is given to the best among them. Reese Wells (10), one of the captains, felt, “It was a really exciting experience for all of us to win best guard at our very first competition because we definitely put in the time and effort for it.” 

You most likely have seen the color guard at home football games where they perform at half-time with the band. Stephanie Dunham (11), the other captain of the color guard said, “Someone can easily become involved in Color Guard by attending our auditions later in the springtime,” Dunham added, “You don’t need to already have any equipment. We provide everything for you, you also don’t need to have any previous experience because we teach you everything you need to know at auditions. All you need to bring with you is a good work ethic and a positive attitude.”

The color guard has been preparing for this season for quite some time. Since the summertime, the guard has been practicing and developing the choreography for the year. Dunham elaborated, “I would say that this year’s color guard has spent so many hours upon hours of preparing for competitions this year. Before school even started in late July, early August we had about 2 weeks of choreography camp. Getting together 3 hours a day and learning choreography from our amazing choreographer, Anita Newlan who also works as a choreographer for the Nixa marching band.” 

The color guard’s captains also had some boot camp before the year began. Dunham said, “Me and Reese were a part of leadership camp for another week to help prepare ourselves to be better captains and leaders for the team this year,”  Wells added, “I think a big strength for our team is that everyone wants to be better, and we are all willing to put in the effort to improve.”  

The band and color guard are competing at their last contest on Saturday, October 22, 2022.