These medals celebrate the victories of an Indiana marching band, yet they are usually stowed away in a drawer instead of displayed. The color guard director sees them as a reminder of her students’ passion, hard work, ambition, and dedication and not as the end goal of achievement. The medals are not representative of an individual student or success but rather of the band as a whole – the collective student body and the instructors who work tirelessly each season. They are a tangible reminder of the lessons she learns every day from her students. These lessons are not necessarily that of spinning technique or flag handling but rather of teamwork, gratitude, perseverance in the face of adversity, and maintaining a love and passion for the art in spite of its challenges.
Listen to this color guard instructor’s story in her own words:
This object is part of the “Unconventional Wisdom” section of the Artifacts of Experience exhibition designed by University of Cincinnati students in the “Introduction to Public History” course in 2023.
We encourage you to explore the other objects in our collection.
Transcript
Anonymous [Anon]: I actually chose some medals. I got one from Grand Nationals Bands of America. One is a color guard State Championships medal and then one is Indiana Percussion Association state medals.
[Anon]: I think they serve as a reminder for why I do what I do, and how we work hard. Sorry, I didn’t know I was gonna be emotional. Like…it’s the reminder of seeing the kids’ hard work being rewarded. And sometimes the reward is just seeing their progress and sometimes it’s nice to to have that tangible of everybody worked together as a team to make something happen, to make art.
[Anon]: I think it just is a reminder of, of each team of kids that have that have gone through the program and how hard they worked and their personalities because you know, every team is different in their personalities different not just individually but as a whole and how they work together. So I think it’s it for me, it’s just a reminder of those kids and those programs. And why we worked hard every day to make these kids better.
[Anon]: For us the seasons are so long, you know marching season is six, eight months. So I don’t know that there’s like a specific memory or a specific kid because there’s just, there’s so many of them. I think it’s just like them as a unit and the adult team in place that helped get them where they go. So I don’t know that it’s necessarily like a moment in time or a kid, a student, but just the bigger moment of that the whole season.
[Anon]: Every season, every group of kids teaches you something different. Whether it’s about how to teach or about you personally. So I think that it’s, you know, and again, it’s not one single thing that’s tied to an individual medal and to be honest, these like sit in a drawer, you know, like there there’s a whole bunch of them. There’s, there’s more than just the ones I’m sharing with you but I think it’s, you know, every year I learned something new, even though I’ve been doing this a really long time.
[Anon]: Probably perseverance, and not just like in our activity. But you know, in my township there’s great diversity in not just ethnicity but you know, like, financial diversity and, like, there are kids that have gone through things before they ever get to me that I can’t, as an adult, imagine having to navigate. So I think it’s that that perseverance on a personal level. That is almost a daily lesson.