A new addition has been added to the North Harford High School marching band. The color guard has been brought back to add some more excitement to the Hawk’s halftime shows.
“The color guard is part of the marching band, so they bring kind of a visual element to what we’re playing musically,” said music teacher and band director Mr. John Wojciechowski. “It incorporates a lot of times spinning flags, but they also have choreography and dance things that they do during halftime show,” the band director continued.
This new addition came with some uncertainties regarding members and how the group would do. “We really wanted to just add it and kind of see what happened,” explained Wojciechowski. “We didn’t necessarily have any sort of direct goals of wanting the color guard to compete or do anything like that.” The band director just wanted to see if students were interested and to provide an opportunity for students to join the color guard.
Regarding the first couple of football games, Wojciechowski thinks they did really well in their halftime performance. “It was great just in our first couple of games to see them come together,” stated Wojciechowski. “Obviously we had things we had to polish, but, I mean, it’s been going really well,” he continued.
“Something we need to improve on would probably be our synchronization in our performance,” said freshman and co-captain Madelynn Kleback. She explains that they “have it mostly down, but our spins don’t always match up, so we’ve been working on that lately.”
With the color guard being so new, nobody knew exactly what to expect with their first couple performances. “What I was most impressed with over the first couple of games was just them being able to kind of jump in and really learn where their spots were on the field,” said Wojciechowski. They move around to many different spots on the field throughout the performance. Overall, Wojciechowski says, “Just the way they were performing and their overall energy was really awesome.”
“Color guard has been practicing; they do a lot of stuff on their own because they have their own practice schedule,” explained the band director. The color guard joined the band for band camp over the summer, but since then, they have had their own schedule.
“Guard practices twice a week usually, with extra optional practices added in as needed,” stated senior and co-captain Olivia Minichiello. “We also have about an hour long practice session before each performance,” continued the captain.
The color guard has two captains, Minichiello and Kleback. “As the captain of my team, it is my job to lead warm-ups, work one-on-one with our team members, and get our group focused,” explained Minichiello. “But more importantly, the job of the captain is to bring the team together and inspire them to perform at their peak,” continued the leader. Minichiello feels it is important to build a personal connection with every team member.
“It’s been really fun working with the captain and helping others during our practices,” said Kleback. The co-captain explained that the captains were selected by majority vote. “I am very grateful that [Minichiello] and I were chosen.”
On top of showcasing their work during the halftime performance they also got to compete, where they got a lot of good feedback and even placed first. “So far, my favorite part of being in color guard has been participating in the show that secured color guard and marching band’s first place win at the Harford Classic MMBA exhibition,” stated senior Jamie Berigtold.