Senior Color Guard Captain Emma Snowden grips her flag in anticipation. Where there should be worry, joy and confidence instead enter her face. With the flip of a flag, the show starts, brimming with the team’s hard work with everyone putting their best effort on the stage.

The color guard has advanced to the state level of the Texas Color Guard Circuit Championships held in Dayton, Ohio. Color guard is a sport consisting of colorful banners, rifles, and sabers which are used to perform a practiced dance routine, often in coordination with the marching band. The winter guard season started in early January. The team was in Dayton for the week of April 10, competing Thursday through Saturday marking the first time in recent Bowie history that a color guard team has made it this far.

“I’m feeling a bit nervous but I think we all got it in the bag,” Snowden said. “I have a lot of hope and faith in this team because they come a long way from when we first started back in January.”

The color guard has gone through a few director changes over the past few years, with leadership now being under Coach Daniel Riley who has helped the team find success at the Dallas regional and Texas Color Guard Circuit Championships in San Antonio. As the team prepares, Coach Riley shows his support.

“[Coach] told us ‘I’ve seen you succeed. I want to see it again, so don’t let this pressure get to you,’” junior Lauren Roberts said. “He’s funny, he makes jokes, but he also keeps it real with us. So when something’s really tough and someone’s stressed he makes the time to really give us a moment.”

Unlike a regular competition where there is only one performance, the team will be able to compete in a preliminary round, a semi-final, and then finals. The pressure for every performance will be amped up as the team hopes to advance even further.

“It’s just a lot of people, ” junior Ellie Young said. “It can be a lot of pressure because if you drop something everybody sees you. It’s one of the most exciting things about it [but] it’s [also] nerve-racking.”

Keeping cool under pressure can be difficult, even for the experienced members of the program. Through it all the members must find a way to persevere.

“It’s a mix of mindset and taking care of your body because I know for me I’m jittery,” Roberts said. “I think it’s more just keeping a positive mindset into it because we’re doing an 18 hour drive. I know for a fact a lot of people are gonna be grouchy, tired, so I think it’s just keeping yourself healthy, taking vitamin C every day, and getting the eight hours of sleep they asked of us.”

With a team mainly consisting of promising underclassmen, the program has a bright future ahead.

“I hope that they grow hungry and want to get better. Not just for the team but for themselves,” Snowden said. “I know color guard is a really hard skill to reach sometimes, especially for me in my growing process so I hope they’re getting on record.”

The team placed 27 out of 43 teams in Dayton, making them ineligible for the semi-final round, however, the program will not be deterred. 

“I’m very confident in the future of the program,” Snowden said. “I think the other leaders that I have so they’re obviously going to take on the team after me and their leadership this far has been overall really good. After I leave, they will have an even bigger Color Guard to handle and I think they’ll do great with that.”