As the Celebrities dance team kicks off a brand new school year, they introduce a new group to the program, called Honor Guard. It consists of a small group of students who give up their time and energy on Friday nights to support the Celebs.

In years past, there were whispers of having an Honor Guard but it never happened until this year. This new program for the Celebrities hopes be continued throughout the years and for future students. Multiple Celebrities including senior Sophia Farias introduced the idea to Director, Nikki Evans, who eventually agreed to spark up a new tradition.

“We have a really huge team this year I think it will be very beneficial,” Farias said. “They do all the heavy lifting, which is really nice, especially on game days. They help set up our seating area and make sure other people don’t sit in our spots, and much more. They bring positivity and you can clearly see that they love their role. They are super respectful and are always so excited to do anything they are asked to do.”

Although Honor Guard is brand new, they are already pretty popular with the students. The Celebrities love the new addition to their program, according to Farias. Honor Guard consists of five guys: seniors Ryan Taylor, Cyrus Van Sickle, Brady Allen and Aidan Johnson, along with junior Braeden Fuller.

“I like the energy that they bring as well, because they’re super hype about everything and it just makes game days more exciting,” Farias said.

Being a part of the team has been very enjoyable so far, according to Taylor.

“I like being able to help the team with everything they need,” Taylor said. “I think serving people brings a lot of joy into my life and so being able to do that for many people is awesome and being able to be close up with the team watching them perform is a whole new level of experience.”

When the boys first started thinking about becoming part of the Honor Guard, they had to go through an interview process.

“We first showed interest that we would like to be a part of Honor Guard by attending the meeting in DEN at the end of last year, where they gave us all the requirements and information about what we would be doing,” Taylor said. “We joined a Google Classroom to submit our application and then later on in the summer we were interviewed by head director, Ms. Evans, and assistant director, Mrs. Thompson. At first I think we were all a little scared, but the directors are actually the nicest people on this earth and made us feel very comfortable during the interview. We waited two weeks and got an email from Ms. Evans that we had made Honor Guard and were then given more information about what our schedule would look like for the year.”

As the year goes on, Honor guard will continue to assist the Celebs. In addition to aiding the Celebrities, they also fill up the girls’ water bottles before they perform at the game. They are helpful for all the Celebrities on game day, according to Farias.

“They are there to give an extra helping hand with stuff like props and they will help run our show,” Farias said. “Which in years past we’ve had to scramble to find people to help run our show. This year we have people there to do it and they’re like a security blanket. They’re really cool and they provide a lot of help and make things run a lot smoother.”