Personal Narrative: High School Band And Color Guard

When I think of leadership, I think of it as a skill that not everyone can develop. For me, it took numerous times of being a follower or a leader, before developing this skill and form the type of leader that I wanted to become.

I was born and raised in Gulfport, Mississippi, an area immersed in a relaxed coastal culture and a vibrant jazz and blues heritage. Gulfport is located right off the Gulf of Mexico and less than an hour from New Orleans, Louisiana. Living near the Gulf, heavily influenced my childhood, I would spend weekends at the beach, and long hours traveling to distant islands far from the coast I called home. The music you would hear at the beach were always from timeless Americana artist; such as, Bob Dylan and Jonny Cash. My parents, not musicians themselves, were infatuated with the music of the late 1980’s from artists like Prince, Michael Jackson, and Journey. My particular favorite artist from that time period was Queen, and my love for rhapsody

Throughout my high school career, there is only one major thing that has affected my entire life, including my educational performance and that is marching band. The marching band at my high school is one of the most well respected programs in my district. In eighth grade, I decided to audition for color guard. And when I made the team, I became apart of the marching band. That year, my entire life changed. In order to participate in the marching band, your grades have to be good and you can’t get in trouble. When I joined marching band, I strived to be better than what I was. I picked my grades up and I didn’t get into trouble. That was five years ago now, I am color guard captain now and I couldn’t imagine my life without color guard. Being

Throughout my years of participating in high school basketball, I have overcome many challenges. My freshmen year, basketball started in a way I never expected. Continuing on, I understood the real meaning of hard work, and what it takes. Lessons I learned in basketball will carry on throughout my life, helping me to become a successful adult.

In all of my Highschool career, I have developed numerous skills whether it be from being head of groups, able to speak in big crowds, and making sure that everyone understood their positions. Starting eighth grade, I had begun my journey by being a part of the Junior National Honor Society and becoming our classes representative, or as others say “Junior High valedictorian”. At this point in my life, I was able to realize that I demonstrated all the characteristics that a leader needed, and I was viewed to students and teachers as a mentor. After I had been promoted to High School, I was ambitious and challenged myself to be a part of Louder Than A Bomb poetry group. Freshman year was the Louder Than A Bombs first year at our High School which caused that year to be the group's building block. I helped kids speak out loud to me, gave suggestions, and kept them organized. To this day, I am the manager of the club, and I continue to push these artists to new levels while they continue to inspire me at the same

I have always been a particularly musical person. When I was younger, I wanted to become a singer when I grew up, but upon joining the choir in elementary I realized I did not have the talent for singing that I thought I had. Continually singing off key and never sounding as good as my peers did, I decided to confine myself to singing at home where only my family could hear me. Despite this revelation that I was, in fact, a terrible singer, I still wanted to participate in some type of musical performance and decided to join the band in middle school. After trying out various different instruments, I settled on the flute and quickly fell in love.

It was the moment I had been practicing for. I was finally going to try out for my middle school cheer team and hopefully make it. I was so excited I could barely focus on my classes that day. I had run through all of the steps at least 50 times that day.

During my high school year, I had joined the color guard team. Trying out for and being on the team had taught me a lot about myself and what I expect from myself. I had tried out for the team twice.

Throughout my years in high school, I have been very involved in the band program here at Langham Creek. As a freshman, I started out in Concert 2 band. Concert 2 is one of the lowest bands in the program. When I first entered the program, I had wanted to quit. However, after a while, I grew to really enjoy band. I started practicing more and put in more effort with what I did. I was first chair in concert 2, which is the principal player. At the end of the year for auditions, I decided to try out for Symphonic band, the top band in our school. Because I was in one of the last bands, a lot of people told me this would be very difficult to do. When the results came in I found out I had made symphonic. I was very proud of myself with how much I had improved within just a year. I even got the Academic Excellence for Concert 2 band award at the end of the 2013-2014 school year. Along with this, I have received many band awards including Marcher of the week,

I believe in the act of paying it forward, and treating others the way you want to be treated in the midst of it. Ever since I was a little girl, I always had a heart to help anyone that I was able to. I hated seeing others down, making it seem as if I was higher than them when I had nothing. I believed that if I was in their shoes, I would want someone to help me. Seeing homeless people on the side of the streets sad, hungry, desperate for just a bite of a sandwich or even a couple dollars to get them by for the next few days, made me realize how much I want to help people who are in need. This is the reason I am becoming a nurse practitioner and become apart of The National Guard.

The transition from childhood to adulthood occurs when an individual is able to recognize the impact he or she can leave upon their community, gaining life skills doing so. An accomplishment that marked my transition from childhood to adulthood, would be best demonstrated by the process and completion of a leadership responsibility when I performed my Eagle Scout Project. I joined the scouting program when I was very young, and have been very active since ever. Becoming an Eagle Scout has many challenges that a young Boy Scout must undertake, including the completion of a community-based project, which is an important step in obtaining this notable rank. The Eagle Scout Project is designed for the scout to learn different leadership responsibilities. The project allows the scout to have practice with difficult situations to give the young man experience in life lessons. My community-based project was

Nothing hurts more than being excluded. I learned this the hard way my sophomore year. This is a story about my high school lacrosse team. Most of my friends are on the team so we’ve become very close after playing together since the seventh grade. We play lacrosse in the backyard almost everytime we’re together.

I stood seven steps from the start line, hands sweaty and lips trembling. It seemed as if at any moment I would break the position of attention: feet at a forty-five degree angle, knees slightly bent, chin just above the horizon, and shoulders up, back, and down. Though I always dreamed of representing the Benicia High School Panther Band as their drum major, the lone figure in front of the block of blue and gold wearing a white British uniform and a brown bearskin hat, it never occurred to me that I was finally there. There was no way I could not be nervous; it was the last marching practice before my first competition in my career. Nevertheless, there was no escape.

to come together to learn the same lessons with one of the most important ones

The past four years of my life hold both my highest of highs and my lowest of lows. High school can be a very awkward time period in a person’s life. Four years ago, I made the intimidating switch from St. Mary’s School to Algoma High School. There were certain aspects of high school which made me nervous, but academics was not one of them. I learned how to be a responsible student in my earlier years, and school had always come relatively easy to me. As high school went on, the workload grew, but I also grew, so I was perfectly capable of keeping up with the work. This type of growth came rather easy to me. It was important for me to have one thing I could be confident with through all of the drama and chaos in my life.