Senior Natelyn Beggs sits in the auditorium of Denton High School anxiously awaiting the announcements of rankings from the competition from earlier. The silent room as announcements begin. Students from various schools go up to the front of the room to receive the trophies for their respective schools. When it finally becomes female color guard’s turn, third and second place awards are then called out, and Beggs begins to worry they won’t place in the top three. Then suddenly, Legacy was called for first place.
“There was this rush of pride, this happiness like lifted me off my chair,” Beggs said. “I walked to the trophy and picked it up and brought it over to my teammates and they’re all pumped up.”
On Oct. 1, JROTC received awards for three different areas. They received first place in both female color guard and first-year unarmed regulation as well as third place in Inspection. Freshman Sebastian Rodriguez was excited to do so well at the competition, but he was also happy just to compete in it.
“I get to have fun with all of my other friends and the other cadets,” Rodriguez said. “I get to challenge myself [and] see how good I can do under pressure.”
To earn these awards, the students put in hours of practice outside of class. They practice on Tuesdays, Wednesday and Thursday each week for an hour every time. Although JROTC requires hours of perfecting drills, Rodriguez doesn’t feel the work is too difficult.
“We practice for an hour a day, which is not really much,” Rodriguez said. “It’s enough to catch on and start getting things cleaned up. If you kind of put it off and you wait until the last minute, it’s more like you have to get caught up with everyone else. But if you work really hard at it, it’s not that hard.”
The next competition will be held on Nov. 5 at Cowtown. The students will learn and perform entirely new routines for this competition. Each school will perform and get judged based on the same set of commands for each area of competition.
“We didn’t do as well as we wanted to at Denton, so we definitely have fire under our feet,” Beggs said. “I think we’ll bring home more trophies next time.”
