by Andrew Rothfusz

Every home football game, the Atlantic High School Trojan Guard starts things off by playing Loyalty, our school fight song, and the National Anthem for the crowd.  Then, at half time, they continue to entertain the crowd with their performance of that year’s field marching set.  This Saturday the 18th,  the Trojan Guard will take their talents to Treynor to compete in their final contest of the year, at the state level.

Band director Jarrod O’Donnell says that he expects the Guard to do well this weekend.  “We are on the fence between a 1 and 2 rating; I hope that we can top it out at a 1.  If everyone does what they are supposed to do, then we will get a 1.  If not, then it will still be a close thing.”

The Trojan Guard, which has been practicing its marching set since Aug. 4th, meets at 7:30 a.m. for early morning practices every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday.  This year’s marching set, entitled “Toon Tunes”, features songs from different cartoons, including The Incredibles, Frozen, Despicable Me 2, and Nightmare Before Christmas.

“I like our music for this year, there were some good choices made there,” said freshman Miranda Chipman, who plays quints in the Trojan Guard Drum Line.  She also expects the Guard to do better at the competition this weekend than they have previously.  “We have worked hard these last couple of weeks.  We should do pretty well.”