Early Saturday morning, buses are loaded with team members who are finishing the last of their makeup and costume touch-ups while flags, rifles and performance floors are loaded onto the trailers for the colorguard’s first competition of the season. 

Over the past few months, the Royals colorguard teams, directed by Alex Fernandez, have been preparing for this year’s winterguard season. There are three teams in total and over the past weekend, all three teams competed for North Texas Colorguard Association (NTCA) at Martin High School. 

Junior varsity’s show this year is titled “Alone with the Moon” with music by Teho Teardo and Blixa Bargeld. The show is about a moon goddess, portrayed by senior Tailene Morales, who wakes up the sleeping children. Then they follow her as she escorts them towards the sky and they fly to the moon. 

“I’m really thankful to be a winterguard soloist especially since it is my first season with the guard,” Morales said. “When performing, it’s exciting to embody the role of the moon goddess for the audience and share my talents as a dancer. Although there is more pressure on me as a soloist, it has been really easy with such a supportive team that always lifts me up.”

Junior varsity competed in the Novice category taking first place with a sub-total of 82.400, but a prop malfunction set the team back with an eight-point penalty which pushed them to second place with a score of 74.400.

“I felt that the penalty was unfair for the team as it wasn’t the guard members’ fault and tarnished what would have been an excellent debut performance,” junior Aidan Nguyen said. 

Despite the penalty in place, the JV was able to move up a class and is now competing in the Regional AA.

The A guard’s show this year was titled “Taking Flight” with music Flying by Cody Fry. The show is about birds straying away from their nest and being able to spread their wings and fly free. 

“I really enjoy our show concept because there are so many different mechanics going into our show,” sophomore Lilly Proffer said. “I think this show has a lot of potential and if we keep working on it we’ll definitely do well this season.”

A guard competed in the Scholastic AA category taking fourth place with a total score of 62.960. Scoring first place in their respective category promoted them to Scholastic A.

“I am extremely proud of the performance my team put out on Saturday due to the series of obstacles that we aced whether that was learning a challenge or new technique or COVID-related setbacks because at the end of the day, we did the best we possibly could and that’s all I could ever ask for.”

Varsity’s show this year is titled “Jukebox” with music Jailhouse by Rock Elvis Pres, Earth Angel by Penguins, Great Balls of Fire by Jerry Lee Lewis, The Twist by Chubby Checker and We go Together by John Travolta and Newton-John. Their show takes place in a 1950s diner and is centered around a jukebox. This is meant to showcase its impact on the 1950s by showing a variety of popular 50s songs with choreography meant to represent the joy brought from music. 

“I am very excited,” senior Kaitlyn Durst said. “I love the concept, and I like being able to spin and compete with everybody again.”

Varsity competed in the Scholastic A category taking fourth place with a score of 62.920.

“I thought overall we put our best foot forward,” junior Leila Smith said “But I also feel like it could have gone better, however, it was fun to be at a contest again.”

All three teams will compete at WGI in San Antonio Feb.3.