The adrenaline flows through their veins as they gather together. After weeks and weeks of practice and choreography, it was time to show off all that hard work. The girls huddled together and shared words of encouragement moments before they joined the band. It is time for the color guard to take the field with their friends under the Friday Night Lights. 

As the guard transitions from marching season to winter guard this week, the group is ready for a new routine and new adventure.  After a week of clinic and tryouts, new members are joining the veterans on the guard. 

“I like winter season better because we get to do a lot more fun tosses and we get to have more body work and I think the music is better,” junior Kayleigh Corbin said. 

The variety is better when it comes to more space on the field and music.

“I like marching season better because you have a bigger field whenever it comes to performing and you get to do it with different kinds of instruments,” junior Isabella Gallegos said.

While there is a lot of work that has to be put into practicing and competitions guard members will be with their friends along the way. 

“Winter season because winter season it’s just the guard and you get so close and it’s a lot easier when it comes to rehearsals. And you get to try and get your friends to join and if they do join, you get to have a really fun season with them,” senior Dillyn Schultz said. “It really is just taken not as it’s so serious, but it’s not as stressful because it’s not like you have to stay on the line but do have competitions.” 

The adrenaline rush during marching season is the best feeling especially when there are people cheering you on the whole time. 

“I love marching season way more than I will ever love winter guard because marching season you get to perform in front of a bigger crowd you get people that care about it you get people that don’t care about it that are interested you get to meet so many different people like well way more than you ever get to,” junior Nevaeh Scholwinski said. “This is the adrenaline that I talked about. During the Friday Night Lights the lights are on you and only you and it is the most adrenaline pumping thing in the world. I love marching season.” 

Not enough people know about guard and the benefits from it. 

“It feels like something a lot of people would benefit from being in because it’s so therapeutic to be in a community like this,” Schultz said. “I really wish people would give it a chance more.” The guard is lucky to be so close to each other. 

“So the way codeguard has changed from back then and then now is that back then we weren’t so close and now the guard is really, really close,” Gallegos said. 

Building a community with each other is good especially when building a bond with the band directors. 

“This year we have better directors and better peers which helps us with building our community and treating each other with kindness,” Corbin said. 

Having each other as a team makes everyone want to be there. 

“The culture has definitely changed a lot since I was a freshman, we’re more of a team than we have ever been in my personal opinion, and it’s not it doesn’t feel like a day job anymore,” Scholwinski said. “It feels like I want to be here.” 

Guard is not only fun but can help people be more aware of everything around them.

“It’s made me a more focused person when it comes to my goals, and they helped me become more organized with events coming up,” Schultz said. “It just helped me become more aware of people.” 

The community that is built in guard can make people more confident in themselves and others.

“It has made me become more confident and myself to be around people and it has made my anxiety go down,” Corbin said. 

The guard and everyone in it can teach things that might never have been thought of before.

“It’s taught me to think more creatively, there are things that I would never have thought of if I hadn’t joined guard. It has also taught me how to truly invest myself in something and how to work hard,” Scholwinski said. 

It is exciting to perform but it is more exciting to perform with the friends that are made in color guard. 

“My favorite part about color guard is definitely the friends that I have and the performing,” Scholwinski said. “My friends are amazing and are the funniest people to be around especially like my junior friends and then performing. I don’t know how to explain this but there’s like an adrenaline rush whenever I’m performing and it feels amazing, especially when you nail it.”