Color Guard Adds Spice to Mississippi College

Colorful flags will be flying high at Mississippi College football games again this fall.

For the first time since 2002, MC will feature a color guard during Choctaws home games at Robinson-Hale Stadium.

The eight-member team will show off their skills during half-time shows also featuring the MC Marching Band.

“We add a sense of excitement to the band during practices and games,” says Laurie Pettis, the co-captain of the MC color guard. “It’s a great way to bring a different group of girls together to do something they love. We get along great and have fun.”

A 2010 Pascagoula High graduate and who’s now a freshman, Pettis is a Christian Studies major on the Clinton campus. She brings valuable experience to her new assignment at MC. Laurie spent three years as a member of the color guard at Pascagoula High, including a stint as co-captain last year.

Pettis and Aimee Walters of Crystal Springs are serving as the MC color guard  co-captains this year.

Another color guard newcomer, 20-year-old Brittney Porter of Jackson is switching roles. The MC junior used to play clarinet in the band at Callaway High and at Mississippi College.

But Porter will be ready when MC kicks off at the next home game against Louisiana College Sept. 25. “This is her first year doing color guard, but she’s practiced all during the summer,” says her mother, Gala Porter, who expects to catch some of her daughter’s performances this fall in Clinton.

Other color guard members include Jessica Jobe of Joliet, Ill., Onnika Johnston of Mooreville, Michelle Ladner and Tanecia Rouse-Nelson, both of Gulfport, and Shannell Shelby of Jackson.

Director of the MC Marching Band, music professor Craig Young said the interest was there and the timing was right to bring back the color guard after MC went without one for eight years. At Saturday night’s MC-Belhaven game, the band performed lively numbers with titles such as “Ain’t  Nothin’ Wrong With That.”

As for the color guard, Choctaws fans will discover  it was right to add the talented group to the musical lineup for MC’s five home football games.