Friday Night Lights Feature - Goldthwaite High School

Hello Texas Twirl Fans!

We have returned and those Friday Night Lights are back to brighten up our weeks! We could not be happier to see twirlers all over Texas back on the field, and we can’t wait to see many more amazing moments as football season continues. As those Friday Night Lights turn on each week, we hope to see everyone continue to enjoy the sights and sounds of football teams, marching bands, and our favorite, lots of talented Texas baton twirlers! 

Each season this blog likes to get to know many of our awesome Texas twirlers a little better by learning about their experiences. We will be meeting many High School twirlers throughout the season with the Friday Night Lights Features and discovering more about our Texas Collegians with the Collegiate Twirler Spotlights. We will also be having many of our High School and Collegiate twirlers take over our Social Media Story for their Game Days! Make sure to follow us on Instagram @twirlingiscatchingtx or at facebook.com/twirlingiscatchingtx so you don't miss a thing!

This season’s first Friday Night Lights Feature is the Goldthwaite High School Senior Feature Twirler!

Goldthwaite, Texas, is a small town with a population of ~1.7K people that is about 1.5 miles North West of Austin, or West of Waco, and the home of the Eagles. It is also the home of a generational tradition of baton twirlers! Not only does the High School have a constant stream of twirlers, but the Middle School also has a program where future GHS students learn the skills they need to one day be a Feature themselves. Friday evening, we got to experience a Game Day at GHS through the Instastory Takeover. Now we get to learn more about representing the Eagles with Goldthwaite High School Senior Feature Twirler Addison Lee! 

We asked Addison, who goes by Addie, about the audition process at GHS. “We all go into the gym, warm up, and draw a number from the director. Then we go out in the hall and tryout one-by-one by doing all the required skills and our prepared routine. Then we wait for results.”

 

In addition to Addie shining on the field each week, GHS also has a sophomore Feature Twirler, Emily Bartek! Emily is an avid runner and was not able to be at the game on Friday due to a busy week with a back-to-back cross-country meets. Most Fridays you can see Emily and Addison sharing the field and wow’ing the crowd together. As friends, co-features, and teammates on the Twirl ATX Diamonds team out of Austin (for which they both travel 3 hours round trip for rehearsals and lessons), these two are quite the pair. A fun fact about Addison and Emily is that in 2022 Addison won the Beginning Junior Southwest Regional Pageant, bringing a regional pageant title home to GHS for the first time. Then in 2023, Emily did the same, bringing the same title back home to Goldthwaite for the second consecutive year! How cool is that?

 

To learn more about Goldthwaite High School, we asked Addie what her favorite thing is about the school, and she said it is the relationship between the teachers and the students. “Since our school is so small all the students are able to connect with the teachers on a deeper level.”

 

Being such a tight-knit school, they must have great traditions! Addie told us that ‘The Battle of the River’ is one of their best! “This is the football game against our biggest rival team, the San Saba Armadillos. This is always a huge game and almost the whole town goes!” 

Another event that Addie looks forward to each year is the Lighting of the Letters, and this year will be especially exciting! “Although our school has already had homecoming, we are doing our lighting of the letters a different week, and I am most looking forward to it because this year I will get to twirl fire!” 

 

Now that we have heard more about GHS, let’s learn more about Addie!

 

Addison Lee, Senior

Competition Level: Advanced

Addison has been twirling for seven years. She is a member of Twirl ATX and is coached by Ashley Wood as well as Whitney Coons & Kaylee Williams. The competition titles she is the proudest of winning was when she won both the 2023 Texas State Senior Intermediate Solo & X-Strut. Addie’s favorite contest tricks are “any type of roll”, and her favorite field trick is a toss walkover. In baton twirling, she has been most inspired by former Tarleton State University & Goldthwaite HS Feature Twirler (and Twirl ATX Teammate), Kaley Dowell. “She helped me get started, taught me some of my first tricks, and encouraged me to work hard for my goals. I also loved to watch her twirl when I was little at pep rallies and games to when she twirled in college.” After High School, Addie plans to attend a four-year college to study Business & Marketing.

 

Fun Facts!

Favorite Color: Sage and emerald green 

Favorite TV show or Movie: Gilmore girls 

Favorite Book: Throne of glass series 

Favorite Food or Drink: 

 

Favorite Quote or Life Motto…

“You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” - Christopher Robin, Winnie the Pooh

 

When she is not twirling, she loves to...

“Read! Reading is my way to escape stress and the world around me.”

 

Something people might not know about me is...

“I am really shy. You may find this hard to believe because I get out on the field and twirl /perform in front of large groups of people, but I am actually an introvert.”

The best non twirling life skill she has gained from baton twirling is...

“Self-Confidence! Getting out on the field, in front of a stand full of people, can be intimidating, but I have learned to embrace it and just have fun. Through that process I have gained a ton of self-confidence!”

 

Most memorable advice from her coach...

“To have fun! It is good to focus on technique, timing, free hand, etc., but having fun is what makes all the hard work worth it.”

 

Advice to future high school twirlers...

“Repetition is key! When I struggled to learn certain tricks, I adopted the “if it first you don’t succeed, try, try again” mantra. Once you land that trick once, repetition is key in perfecting it.”

 

Funniest memory as a baton twirler...

“During meet the eagles, at the very end of the routine I did a firebird. When I came down my ankle basically folded the ground and I fell on my butt. It was embarrassing but I have rolled my ankle so many times before that it’s just funny at this point.”

Favorite thing about marching season...

“I love marching/twirling with the band as well as playing in the stands. We always get so hyped and excited for football even though half of us don’t understand a thing about it.”

 

Favorite tradition or inside joke within your band program...

“Our former band director threw the then assistant (now head) band director’s conducting stick at us while she was conducting and broke it. She kept conducting because, of course, the show must go on. So now it is taped to the wall in the band hall.”

 

What she will miss the most when marching season is over…

“I will miss twirling with Emily! We have twirled together for the past 2 years for our school and the past 3 years on the same competitive team. We have gotten really close through twirling so I’m definitely going to miss her.”

 

We want to say thank you to Addie for sharing her game day with us. Good luck to Addie on the rest of her senior year, and we hope both Addie and Emily have an amazing rest of the season together!

We hope you have enjoyed this blog post. We are always looking for great new stories about Texas twirlers. Do you have an idea or some information we could use to help highlight our sport? Contact us at texastwirlcontact@gmail.com and we would love to hear more about it.