Have you ever heard a group of girls screaming “Bears on three! One, two, three, BEARS!” after half time at varsity football games? Those girls make up the Parkway West Color Guard, who dedicate three to four months every season to dancing alongside the marching band.

Competition days are typically eight to 12 hours long for the marching band and color guard, and 15 hours for competitions far from St. Louis, so members have strategies to boost their energy so that they can make it through the day.

“I play my pump-up jams. I play the Ellie Goulding songs, ‘On My Mind’ and ‘Powerful,’” junior DeMonica Mims said.

The band must report to the music hallway 30 to 45 minutes before the buses are scheduled to leave. Competitions require students to be in the band hallway between 6:30-7:00 a.m. if they are performing in the morning, and 8:30-9:00 a.m. if they have an afternoon performance.

“[I think] ‘What do I need?’ as [I’m] trying to get everything in one place, make sure everything gets on the buses,” senior captain Tori West-Staples said. “I want to keep everyone happy and calm and if something’s really bothering someone, I’ll make sure that they’re okay, and I’ll try to keep my calm. It’s always good to keep everyone from freaking out.”

Color guard completes one ritual, secret sibling, as they board the buses.

“Everyone writes their name and what they like on a piece of paper during band camp, and we put it all in a hat. We all pick a name randomly, and before every competition you give that person a gift based on what they put on their paper.  You aren’t allowed to tell who you have, and at the end of the year or the season you reveal who you have and give a bigger present,” West-Staples said.

The bus rides to competitions can range from 15 minutes in length to two hours.

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“The brass bus is so loud, and I think they do that to calm their nerves, I guess, but I like quiet buses,” junior Kayla Johnson said.

Competitions generally draw 15 to 25 bands, most of them double or triple the size of West’s marching band.  

“I’m very serious. There’s no messing around, especially by the adults, it’s very ‘Get your head in the game’ it’s not time to joke around, I just try to compose myself, try to get my head into the fact that I’m about to perform,” West-Staples said.

The marching band’s current show is entitled Poltergeist, and band parents created a giant TV as a prop with a set of steps leading up to it, where the color guard waits for the music to start.

“[I’m] nervous, but yet excited, because I know we’re all gonna do good, and it’s just fun being out there with your friends-your family I should say, because that’s basically what we are, one big giant family,” Mims said. “[When running through the show, I tell myself] don’t let it slip out of your hands, it’s right there, snag [the flag or rifle] and go.”

West-Staples follows a similar pattern as Mims.

“‘Don’t fall…or drop,’ I say.  [I] make sure that my counts are there, and that I’m just in it, I don’t really think much when I’m performing, because I just get so engulfed in it, there’s not really much going through my mind, I just perform,” West-Staples said.

After performances, each section gathers to shout a chant.  Color guard’s chant got its origins two years ago.

“Lucy Vehlewald, who was a sophomore when I was a freshman began calling DeMonica Baby Bear, and then she decided to give us all bear names.  I got Crazy Bear,” Johnson said.

After the other bands have performed in the preliminary round, every drum major forms a line on the track for the awards ceremony.

“I still get excited for it, but we’re not as good [of a band] as we were; I don’t know if it’s because we have a different band director and the band’s just not feeling it or something else,” Johnson said.

On the bus ride home, most people fit under one of two extremes: very talkative or dead silent.

“On the ride home, I want to go to sleep, I want to eat, I want someone to cuddle me because it’s cold from the windows.  I think, Hey John, stop talking so much so I can sleep,” Mims said.  

The color guard practices with the marching band, from July until the very end of October, totaling around 500 hours from the beginning to the end of the season.

“You have to have a good memory, you have to memorize a lot, or else you don’t really know what you’re doing on the field, and your coach isn’t out there, so you’re kind of on your own, if you’re not standing by someone; but you can’t watch the person right next to you, so you really are on your own,” Johnson said.