A first for the River Valley as Northside High School's Gabby Chandler hosts a camp for guard members in Junior High and High School.
When people say band is like a family, they are telling the truth. Today I visited the campus of Northside High School where Ms. Gabby Chandler was hosting a Color Guard Camp. This was open to any area Junior High and Senior High color guard member. Of those groups in attendance were, Fort Smith Southside High, Fort Smith Northside High, Warren High, Dumas High, Pocola High, Mountainburg High, Ramsey Junior High, Chaffin Junior High, Darby Junior High, and Kimmons Junior High.
The camp started Monday, July 9 and finishes up tomorrow. Each day the camp started at 9 that morning and ended around 4 in the afternoon. The morning consisted of Team Building Activities, Conditioning workouts such as Crossfit, and Dance Techniques.
The first thing I saw when I arrived were students from different schools eating their lunch together. Not a single group or person left out. After all the campers were finished with their lunch, some began to use the sound system to play music and dance. This added to the family-like environment that this camp has already established. It made the Northside alumni in me very proud of what this band staff is doing.
After Lunch time, the campers split into three groups, two high school and one junior high group. In these groups, they worked on a routine that they created. Camp instructor Ms. Chandler encouraged the campers to look up videos online to create their routine. Each group had a volunteer that led them in those small groups. I spent about fifteen minutes in each group and watched their hard work.
At 2pm all three groups came together to work on their full group routine. They spent about an hour cleaning and addressing areas in their show that needed work. Then the whole group went outside to the stadium and preformed a few dry runs of their routine that they will present tomorrow.
My thoughts on the camp are that this is a great opportunity for area students to not only prefect their skill in color guard or add to it but to build a community of friends from other bands in the area. Throughout this camp all the volunteers were encouraging and positive. Ms Chandler did comment that she would love to host the camp again next year and expanded into other areas.
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