Leaderboard

this is 1 of 2 designs and will include the names of the attending schools on the back as we have done in the past, Both come in Black and Navy and come in both cotton and dry-fit materials. We will also have long sleeve T-shirts, hoodies, ball caps, wool caps and scarves. We have partnered with a vendor that will allow online ordering without going through the booster clubs (since you are no longer have Leandermomma in Texas to do an early morning pick up on my doorstep the morning of BOA San Antonio) The store will be open for a few weeks and then will close and orders will be processed and shipped to the customers home (anywhere in the country). The first order cycle will open around late July as camps are opening and will close by late August to get all orders delivered before the first Texas BOA regional event. if there is enough demand we will reopen the online store in early October for 2 weeks to have orders filled prior to BOA SA, UIL State, and Grand Nationals. we will post the store link on this site, HornRank, and our "#teamtexas 2021 Grand Nats" Facebook page as well as ask the booster programs of participating programs to promote it as well. our goal is to have a sea of these shirts in Indy in November as our Texas Bands invade Indy again I welcome everyone's thoughts and support on these.

Mccullough jr high is the feeder school for The Woodlands Highschool. They have a wonderful teacher (she teaches math the rest of the day) that teaches them during their class time who has a great dance background and works with them on choreography a lot. The Twhs guard director - Ms Robbins goes in and directs their practices and designed the Jv and varsity group programs. Just this last week Ms Robbins had a directors spotlight done on her on the tcgc Facebook/Instagram. The program has been gradually building the last few years as they were able to get a class approved for a pe credit at the school. We had the same jaw dropping reaction when we saw them and their skills in person for the first time this year.

Oh and maybe I’ll start a trend up here in NW Arkansas. ? #teamtexas4ever

This is awesome @banddad84 I can’t wait to order one!

Their school split isn’t super consequential at the end of the day. Wando is still supposed to have a student population of about 4000 students or more. They’ll have plenty of students for a healthy program, and they’re very well taught. The new school, at about 1500 students at full capacity will probably stake out their own path, while not taking too much from Wando.

I only have the last 4 seasons of knowledge since that’s when my daughter became involved with guard at mccullough, but in the 2018-19 school year is when they started having a color guard pe class, instead of it just being an after school club. When it was an after school club they averaged around 60 girls trying out the year my daughter tried out for 7th grade. The next year when they opened it up for a pe credit- I think they had around 75 girls try out. The following years have had increasingly more- this last year I think it was over 100 that tried out. This year is the first year they’ve had three groups- varsity, Jv, and spin club. I think varsity and Jv have the pe class and spin club is just after school- but I’m not positive. A Twhs guard alumni from 2018 is heavily involved with the mccullough program and helps teach skills and I believe was given the opportunity to direct the spin club. (Twhs readers... speak up if I’m wrong! Lol!) I do believe the big jump in skill level came from having that pe class. The girls went from having two 90 min after school practices a week- to having 3+ hours of class time (a/b alternating days schedule) in addition to after school practices. Most of the class time is just the faculty teacher/coach (Ms Danney- who has gotten married and I don’t know her new married name) who has a great dance background and I think works a lot with the girls on the dance and movement choreography and I think Ms Robbins works with her on what to teach during class time... Ms Robbins attends and runs their after school practices twice a week. Between the Highschool guards and mccullough she is with the Hs classes everyday and every afternoon has a practice with one group or another. (At 3 different locations through the week). She is amazing keeping it all straight!

So Cyndi is directing and designing 4 groups this season?! I think I would overdose on Xanax. I guess it's a good way to ensure that the kids coming into the high school know what you want them to know. How long has Cyndi been directing the McCullough rehearsals? I ask this because I searched on YouTube for other videos of the group, and the most recent one I found (2016) looks more like the typical junior high show I'm used to seeing. I watched the TCGC spotlight video. I've always been curious about the Code Black connection. I see a lot of the same names popping up in Houston-area guard instructor/designer lists. (If you haven't seen the 2007 show that CB won the Independent Open class with, I strongly suggest watching it. That final flag feature. Ugh! Also, it looks like their excellent IW finalist show from 2008 is now available to watch on YouTube.) Definitely the world class is where guards seem to go to die in Texas. Not completely sure why. Maybe it's because the guards in Texas aren't the "well-oiled machines" that they are in the Midwest and a handful of other places. That's part of what made the McC performance so exciting. A great feeder program is one of the first steps to building a machine. I'm just sitting here thinking, if the kids can do that as 6th, 7th, 8th graders, how far along will they be by the time they're seniors in high school, assuming you keep them motivated? Another factor may be the proximity to healthy guard organizations. Having WGI in your backyard probably helps, because that organization comes with experienced people. Sometimes I feel like the instructors in Texas don't fully understand what WGI is looking for in the world class. It doesn't help that a guard director job is often a sort of adjunct position with no formal university counterpart outside of the dance department. Lack of competition in the world class in Texas also probably doesn't help. Competition can be a great motivator.

when my daughter was in guard years ago, I was always amazed at the number of middle schools that had programs for guard - outside of Texas. it has been slow to catch on her but Mccullough has been impressive. one of our guard alumni members recently started at our feeder school as a teacher and got approval to teach guard class but then Covid hit - hoping it gets up and running for the 2021-22 school year. I think that is one of the things that holds back the Texas programs from competing at remaining in World Class. so many do well at the SO level and advance only to be moved back to SO a few years later because they cannot compete. I also noted that there are a number of programs that have strong WGI teams that do not have strong band programs. I understand that is mostly due to lack of funding and it is easier to fundraise for 20-30 members for WGI (and is voluntary) VS funding a entire competitive band. Hopeful middle school programs will continue to grow here in Texas.