Color Guard
Color guards are teams of athletes who perform choreographed dances and routines with various equipment to enhance and interpret the music of the marching band show. Color guard teams can be found in American colleges, universities, high schools, middle schools and independent drum corps They use various equipment including, flags, non-functioning rifles, and sabres, along with other props.
They perform using their equipment (flag, rifle, saber, prop, etc.), and emotional connections (facial expressions and dance and sometimes voice) to the audience to enhance the meaning and feeling of their show.
Color guards perform with marching bands during football games at halftime. During marching band competitions, the guard adds to the overall score of the band and can be judged in many categories including but not limited to: visual effects, auxiliary, and color guard. Color guards have since evolved into a separate activity known as winter guard, which is an indoor sport usually performed during the winter or spring, where the guard performs unaccompanied by a marching band to a piece of pre-recorded music indoors. Winter guards compete independently in such circuits as Winter Guard International (WGI) and East Tennessee Performing Arts Association (ETPAA).
Instructor:
Morgan Sawyers. I’m 26 years old and grew up here in the Gibbs community. I graduated from Gibbs in 2011. I am married to my high school sweet heart Taylor Sawyers (who was also a band kid and he graduated in 2012). We live here in Corryton with our 2 fur babies Simba and Nala. I work for University Orthopedic Surgeons, but my true passion is teaching Color/Winter Guard. I started as an instructor at Carter High school in 2013 where I spent 6 blessed years. This year I am very excited to be back at my Alma mater instructing a great group of kids.
— Morgan Sawyers
Asst. Color guard coach:
Kailey Weaver. I am 21 years old and grew up in Strawberry Plains, Tennessee. I graduated from Carter High School in 2016 but you cannot hold that against me because my amazing husband, Alex Weaver, is a 2015 Gibbs’ Alumni and currently works on campus in the CADNET office. We currently live in Knoxville and hope to be closer to Corryton in the next few years. I am a senior in the nursing program at Carson Newman University and graduate May 1, 2020 with my bachelors degree. I fell in love with color guard after transitioning from clarinet due to simply not wanting to wear the band uniform or the hat, but it was the best decision of my life. I truly found my passion to love and thrive doing color guard. I soon became an instructor along side Morgan at Carter and I am so excited about the transition to Gibbs and cannot wait to see the growth in the program with our amazing kids in the coming years!
–Kailey Weaver