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homerhorizon.com life & ARTS<br />
the homer horizon | April 25, 2019 | 17<br />
LTHS color guard reminisces on recent successes<br />
Auditions for next<br />
season to take<br />
place next week<br />
Alex Ivanisevic<br />
Assistant Editor<br />
Spinning flags and taking<br />
titles, Lockport Township<br />
High School Color<br />
Guard has had a season<br />
full of accomplishments.<br />
Having just wrapped up<br />
its 2018-2019 season, the<br />
LTHS color guard junior<br />
varsity and varsity teams<br />
look back on recent competitions,<br />
titles earned and<br />
improvements made as<br />
they looks forward to upcoming<br />
auditions for next<br />
season.<br />
John Collier, the LTHS<br />
color guard director for the<br />
past four years and seventh-grade<br />
science teacher<br />
at Jane Addams Middle<br />
School in Bolingbrook,<br />
proudly listed off the highlights<br />
of the season.<br />
“The varsity team went<br />
undefeated and received<br />
first place at all of the local<br />
competitions; at the Chicago<br />
Regional, they received<br />
second place, and then at<br />
the world championships,<br />
they scored eighth place<br />
out of 140 teams, which<br />
was our highest achievement<br />
that we’ve ever been<br />
able to accomplish,” he<br />
said. “In addition to those<br />
feats, the Varsity Winter<br />
Guard was named the<br />
2019 Scholastic A Midwest<br />
Color Guard Circuit<br />
Champion for the first time<br />
in school history.<br />
“The JV winter team<br />
earned second place, their<br />
highest ever, in the scholastic<br />
class AA at the 2019<br />
Midwest color guard circuit<br />
championship.”<br />
One could say the<br />
team’s hard work paid off<br />
as color guard balances a<br />
nearly year-round schedule<br />
with both a fall guard<br />
that is with the marching<br />
band and winter guard<br />
which is on its own, with<br />
competitions leading into<br />
April.<br />
Collier said there are<br />
typically 52 students on<br />
the fall guard, and about<br />
35 students on the winter<br />
guard between the varsity<br />
and JV levels.<br />
“We have been the largest<br />
color guard team in the<br />
state for quite some years,”<br />
he said, adding that the<br />
winter guard varsity team<br />
this year had 18 students,<br />
and JV had 16.<br />
The color guard rehearsed<br />
from 4-9 p.m. on<br />
Tuesdays and Thursdays<br />
this year, and typically<br />
they would have eighthour<br />
Saturday rehearsals.<br />
Although there are about<br />
the same number of competitions<br />
throughout the<br />
fall season as there are<br />
in the winter season, the<br />
fall color guard rehearsal<br />
schedule is more strenuous<br />
during the “extremely<br />
competitive” marching<br />
band season, as Collier<br />
described it, so the team<br />
had practice five days per<br />
week.<br />
“The color guard is yearround,<br />
so we really only<br />
have three weeks off, and<br />
then we start up again,”<br />
Collier said. “We’ll have<br />
training camps in May, and<br />
we already have auditions<br />
coming up on April 29 and<br />
30 for next year.”<br />
Katie Mahoney, assistant<br />
director of the color<br />
guard team for four years<br />
and a junior at North<br />
Central College in Naperville,<br />
is looking forward<br />
to the auditions at the end<br />
of this month because she<br />
The 2019 Lockport Township High School Varsity Winter Guard was named the Midwest Color guard Circuit<br />
Scholastic A Champions. Photo submitted<br />
feels the number of freshmen<br />
on the team have “a<br />
strong liking for color<br />
guard will tell friends<br />
about what an awesome<br />
activity it is.”<br />
Mahoney feels that the<br />
team’s recent performances<br />
have given them a better<br />
reputation and this year<br />
has helped the teammates<br />
to progress and become<br />
more comfortable as they<br />
perform.<br />
“I’m super proud of the<br />
team’s accomplishments<br />
and am excited to see the<br />
program expand,” she<br />
said.<br />
Auditions will be from<br />
6-8 p.m. Monday, April<br />
29, and Tuesday, April 30,<br />
at the East Campus band<br />
“It is amazing to be on the color guard team<br />
because we start practicing before school starts,<br />
so it becomes a way to build relationships,<br />
especially for freshmen members, before school<br />
starts. It’s not only a sport but it’s a way for<br />
students to build community with each other.”<br />
John Collier — Lockport Township High School color guard director, on<br />
the camaraderie the group builds<br />
room and are open to any<br />
current eighth-graders<br />
through juniors.<br />
“It is amazing to be on<br />
the color guard team because<br />
we start practicing<br />
before school starts, so it<br />
becomes a way to build relationships,<br />
especially for<br />
freshmen members, before<br />
school starts,” Collier<br />
said. “It’s not only a sport<br />
but it’s a way for students<br />
to build community with<br />
each other, and then they<br />
are building those friendships<br />
and are with those<br />
people the entire year.”
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