The Winter Guard performed their show ‘Missing the Seasons’ at Edwardsville High School on Mar 2. Earning 1st place AA Scholastic Division, the group practices twice a week to prepare for their competition season, which consists of 4 competitions.
Freshman Skylar Holtgrewe said that to prepare for their competitions, the guard had to work especially hard, considering that they are a new team with a lot of younger members.
“We worked really hard on cleaning and finishing the show. We are a very fresh guard– we have 13 freshmen so it’s been a lot of work teaching technique and choreo but I think that it has paid off,” Holtgrewe said.
Freshman Roxanna Moore was a part of the Color Guard in the fall and is now a member of the Winter Guard. Moore said that she has put a lot of work into her techniques, and improving her abilities since the summer.
“When band camp first started I would go in my backyard and go through every toss and piece of choreography we had. I would teach myself random skills I would find on the internet, because I wanted to do the best I could [be],” Moore said.
To ensure success, the team alters their routine to make sure that it is the best it can be, sophomore Hayden Vonderhaar said.
“We change and fix things that we can make better. We [also] always do a full run-through of our show at the end of practice,” Vonderhaar said.
In the fall, there were 10 members. But, Holtgrewe said that the team is much more successful now, as they have 18 members of the guard.
“I feel like everyone is a little bit more experienced. We also have a lot more people in the guard, which makes a huge difference” Holtgrewe said.
The guard spends a lot of time, and hard work preparing for their competitions, but it can still be nerve-wracking before you perform Moore commented.
“Most of us are a little nervous but we try to go through our show in a hallway of the school and do an air run, which is just us running through it in place without equipment. That usually calms us down a little bit,” Moore said.
Though there are a lot of new freshmen on the guard, the team is still able to create chemistry, and build their skills Vonderhaar said.
“It’s fun being able to show so many people the excitement of guard. Everyone has so much talent and it’s been nice having everyone happy to be there, because if you don’t want to be there it can ruin the whole vibe of the team,” Vonderhaar said.

The guard had success in their first competition on Feb 10 at The Francis Howell High School Competition. The guard placed second in the AA Scholastic Division with their performance of their show ‘Missing The Seasons’. The Winter Guard practices twice a week to prepare for their competition season which consists of 4 competitions.
With a lot of new freshmen on the team this year, practice is essential to learn the routines, claims Director and choreographer Halima Hussain.
“Having a consistent training program from week to week, and making sure that the [new] members all have plenty of time and information to understand and achieve skills to have a successful show,” Hussain said.
This year’s show is to the song “California” by Chappell Roan, and the team was ecstatic to learn the music they would be performing to. Senior Kari Koerner said how much she enjoys this year’s show theme.
“I love this year’s show. I love the floor. I love the music. I know we were all super excited when we found out what the song was,” Koerner said.
Hussain said that she works hard to adapt the routine so that members who have gained experience outside of regular practice can showcase their hard work.
“The members work on tricks and new skills outside of rehearsal a lot of times, and will come show me the new thing they can do or have been working on. I try to insert whatever skills I can into the show to make them shine,” Hussain said.
Freshman Claire Bailey said that before the performance, the team gathered to review their routine one last time.
“Before we started, we all got in a circle and went through everything together so that was really nice just to calm down,” Bailey said.
The performance went great according to the judges and Bailey said she agreed.
“We did really good. We got second place. I felt like it was great. Everybody was doing their job well,” Bailey said.
With continuous adapting skills within the group, Hussain said that she is constantly changing the routine to ensure that the determination to learn new skills is displayed in the routine.
“So many things have changed since the first version of the show to adapt to newly found skills within the membership. My main goal is to showcase every performer that I can in their own ways to make sure they all get a moment to shine,” Hussain said.