Patriot pedestrians

Pedestrian.

It’s a word no one wants to see in judges’ comments.

“Sometimes our judges like to use the word as a reference to things being dull or boring,” said Emilie Garringer.

But instead of fleeing from the idea of being pedestrian, Garringer embraced it.

Not in the boring sense, of course. But in the most literal sense of the word.

So Jay County High School’s Winter Guard members are pedestrians on a city street in their show “Anything But Pedestrian,” which they will take to competition for the third time today at Hamilton Southeastern.

“We created a show with a crosswalk and a whole cityscape and the kids are pedestrians on the sidewalks,” said Garringer, who directs the guard along with Leslie Schubert and Sarah Ullom. “And then it just turns into this super exciting, fun, upbeat show. It’s anything but boring.”

The group’s tarp is hand-painted by the performers and staff with a street across the front and another branching off at an angle. On the left side, from the audience’s view, are city buildings, also hand-painted, and to the right a small park with a bench signed by each of the members to resemble graffiti.

At the corner of the intersecting streets is a walk/don’t walk sign, that was created using a volleyball pole. It’s the signal the kicks off the show.

“The red hand is lit,” said Garringer. “And then when it clicks and it goes to the pedestrian walk, the kids cross the crosswalk and that’s the true start of our show.”

The performance itself includes a little bit of everything — “It’s almost like a flash mob for three minutes,” Garringer said — with about half of the group tossing rifles in the park while the others wander around the city buildings. That group then disappears behind the buildings and reappears with flags, printed with city buildings from the perspective of someone looking up at skyscrapers, while the rifle group switches to sabres.

There are also sections of dance and a moment when the performers do yoga in the park, and there is a section in which each of the nine members of the group get to do their own thing.

“It shows our individuality. Because we’re always supposed to be together,” said senior Dallas Negele. "I like how we all get to express ourselves in our own way.”

One of the biggest challenges in creating the show from scratch was finding the right song to go along with the pedestrian idea.

After a long search, Garringer finally settled on “Move Your Feet,” a 2002 nu-disco/funk song by Danish pop duo Junior Senior.

“It was just a matter of finding music to fit what was in my head, which took a long time,” said Garringer. “I wasn’t sure we were ever going to find it. My Spotify in September and October is off-the-wall with this random stuff.”

The group is light on numbers but heavy on experience.

Two-thirds of the Patriot winter guard are seniors — Justyn VanSkyock, Kristy Robbins, Dottie Schuler, Mackenzi Bye, Leanna Miller and Negele. The rest is made up of junior Shealyn Dennis, sophomore Lia West and freshman Isaiah Weekly, who has been involved in winter guard since fourth grade.

With so many seasoned performers, the bar is high in practice.

“There’s a lot of competition between us,” said VanSkyock. “We always push each other to do our best.”

So far, so good.

Jay County finished first in its round and fourth overall in Regional A Class in its opening competition Feb. 1 at Bishop Dwenger. It was second in its round, trailing only Winchester, and fourth overall Feb. 8 at Anderson, where it also won the caption award for best general effect.

Following a week off, the Patriots will head to Hamilton Southeastern today and then close their regular season Feb. 29 at Carroll.

Then comes the Indiana High School Color Guard Association state series with preliminaries March 7 at Franklin Central. The top 36 will advance to the semifinals March 14 at Decatur Central, with the top 16 moving on to the state finals a week later.

The goal? To break through and advance to the state finals for the first time since the shift to the current format.

“I honestly think that we can all do it,” said Negele. “I think we just need to keep staying positive and push ourselves. … We have to push ourselves to be more positive and get things done and work our hardest, because we have a high potential.”