When the music starts to play, this is the girls’ time to shine.Twirling, dancing, and music are some of the essential parts that go into doing baton. Many events in and out of school feature baton twirling, including pep rallies, football games, and town parades.
Juniors Madison St. Gelais and Gretchen Murray are the two baton twirlers for Londonderry High School. St. Gelais and Murray both have a strong passion for baton twirling which began very early on. Being a baton twirler is something that they have both wanted to pursue from a very young age, both starting at only eight years old.
“I realize that everybody in Lancer Nation loves watching us twirl and they don’t care if we have a perfect routine,” Murray said. “Our whole school is so supportive of our twirling and I couldn’t be more thankful for all of them.”
St. Gelais and Murray practice multiple times a week, choreographing their own routines, and choosing music that fits the best with their performance for Pep Rallies and halftime performances.
“Madison and I have been working very hard this year to choreograph a new routine for every one of our performances,” Murray said. “We have been practicing two-three times a week to prepare a new routine for the winter pep rally and we are both super excited for it.”
During one of the football games this season, the twirlers did something that was a huge milestone for them. The girls twirled with real fire, which St. Gelais had feared for a long time. This event consisted of numerous practices, which were kept a secret from LHS students for a continuous amount of months.
“We started practicing last year with fire at my house and I was terrified,” St. Gelais said. “I was so scared to start this but Gretchen was the one pushing me to do this. When we finally put the routine together, I had no time to find out what I was grabbing. You have no time to think and you have to go straight into it.”
Twirling with fire is a favorite moment for both St. Gelais and Murray. They both want to do this again at future events, knowing how much this got the crowd going.
“I was petrified but I am really glad that we did it, the fire department and principal got to see what it was like, and now we can do it more,” St. Gelais said. “The crowd went nuts.”
Murray’s younger self would have “loved to see how much she has grown with her twirling.” She got into this hobby after being inspired by a former lancer twirler who performed at Little Lancer Day. Ever since this specific day, it has stuck with her since.
“When I was younger, I was obsessed with high school twirling and watching the older girls do fire at their football games which inspired me to try the fire baton too,” Murray said.
The girls are very excited about their performance abilities and are going to use them for motivation in the future.
“I love baton, it’s made a huge impact on me and I look forward to many more events to twirl at,” St. Gelais said.
