Having spent the last four years illuminated by the Friday night lights performing with the color guard, as well as the light of her computer screen, her next design takes form pixel by pixel. Senior co-captain of the color guard, PR officer for the marching band and executive editor of T-Wolf Agency, senior Natalie Murray has filled her time with creativity and vibrant leadership in all corners of her life.

Though she plans on going to the graphic design field eventually, Murray is majoring in marketing and plans to attend Texas State. She hopes to minor or take courses in the communications design program, as Texas State has one of the best in the state, according to Murray. Along with graphic design, she plans to continue color guard in the future.

“Since I’m on the [color guard] leadership team, it’s definitely given me leadership skills and taught me how to talk to people,” Murray said. “It requires cooperation skills and knowing how to get along with others. Whether you don’t like someone, someone’s getting on your nerves or you’re having a bad day, you have to put that aside to do your job. Knowing this will be useful and being in graphic design as executive editor has also taught me a lot of these skills.”

Murray said she is thinking about joining an independent marching corps, which is where band members spend the summer traveling together with competitions around the end of August. After, she could audition to join an independent winter guard and professional indoor. Both are similar to high school marching band and winter guard programs, but at a larger and much more advanced level.

“I just love the activity, the people in it, and getting to work alongside the band,” Murray said. “A big part of their thing is student leadership and I think learning that has been crazy beneficial for me. I love being a part of something bigger than myself.”

Having spent all four years of high school in color guard, with rehearsals two to three times a week, Murray grew to be more involved in the band program. As PR Officer for the marching band, she posts on Instagram, collaborates with other pages and organizes social events. In the past, she collaborated with The Breakdown Camp as a “take over” and helped in setting up the fall band events, Lock-In and Pool Party, alongside the band directors.

 “I think student leadership, everything you can learn in the band community and being a part of it is just so valuable, especially going into the real world and pursuing something band-related,” Murray said. “That’s why they teach it to you, so that you can be a great member of the program. Learning everything that they have to teach us is an incredible experience and I think it has set me up very well for my future.”

Murray’s involvement in T-Wolf Agency also honed her leadership skills, as well as graphic design. T-Wolf Agency is the advanced graphic design class who receive different design requests for advertising school wide events/organizations. They take requests from outside of the school as well. This year, the class worked with the Parks and Trails Foundation, whom they designed a new logo for.

“I love devoting myself to something that I do and love,” Murray said. “It’s really impactful for me to see stuff I make in the hallways because I think that’s really awesome. A lot of people have been sending me pictures of yard signs with the Parks and Trails Foundation logo on it, and it’s just so cool to see my work out in the real world. Obviously I see it all the time in school, but it’s still surreal to see it out on the streets.”

Her graphic design work has already earned Murray profit, encouraging her further. For edits that needed to be made on the course selection program for next year, Murray was compensated for working with a district employee. She also designed and was paid for the EssayCrafting logo and the new color guard logo.

“What’s great about the agency here is that not a lot of other schools have it,” Murray said. “Not a lot of the people I’m going to be working alongside with had the same resources as me, so this will put me ahead. I think this will put me in a really good place and make my first year of college easier if it gives me one less thing to try and learn.”