Friday Night Lights Feature - Steele High School Twirlers

Hello Texas Twirl Fans!

Another great weekend of twirling means we are almost done with marching band season. Can you believe it? Only a few more weeks with these amazing twirlers representing on their High School fields. We hope all of you are enjoying it while it lasts. We know we will miss it! In the meantime, we have another Feature Interview with some of our awesome Texas Twirlers for your reading enjoyment today.

This week’s Friday Night Lights Feature is the Steele High School Feature Twirlers!

Steele High School, located in Cibolo, Texas, is the home of the Knights, and these three wonderful twirlers! Each Friday, the Steele community gets to enjoy watching their marching band, as well as this week’s Featured twirlers performing as both twirlers and members of the Colorguard! The Steele High School Feature Twirlers are Aralynn McHatton, Micaiah Hubbard, and Natalie DeLeon!

We asked them about their audition process, and they said it was all based on their UIL Solo Rating.  Since they couldn’t do UIL until they were already in the band program, as Natalie told us, they had to be in color guard their freshman year. Then, as Aralynn mentioned, “We had to get a 1 on our twirling solo at the Region UIL contest to get to twirl. It was super fun for me because I performed in front of the entire guard since I was sick the original date of UIL, so I had to do it during practice.” 

While Game Days and performing with the Steele Band are of course highlights of their season, we wanted to know what other things they loved about going to Steele HS. Micaiah told us that her favorite part “is the amazing people and different extracurricular activities”, while Natalie says she loves the support from the school, especially around exam time. “Before our final exams, the staff puts on a small carnival during our lunches. They have music playing with bouncy castles and even a petting zoo to help soften our nerves before the stressful week of tests.” Aralynn has had a similar experience with supportive teachers and has been able to keep connections with many of them. “I have this one teacher that I can go to her classroom and fill her in on my life and she will play games and laugh with me and some of my other friends, even though she hasn’t been my teacher since freshman year.”

Being a part of Steele Nation, there are so many fun traditions within the school, the band, and the student body. Natalie tells us her favorite tradition is one that helps her gives back to the band program. “My friends and I have started a tradition where we work the Freshman and JV football concession stands every Thursday. We have a ton of fun volunteering and all the money that we make goes right back to the band.” Aralynn says that many of her favorite traditions are from being in Colorguard, especially the Karma Kapp. “It’s a Colorguard tradition that we do before we go on the field where we basically scream “ONE AND TWO AND THREE HUH!” We also do squiggle arms with it and then we all laugh after.”

This year they are looking forward to many new experiences, as well as their marching show. Micaiah is really excited about taking their show to marching band competitions, as is Aralynn. “Our marching show is A Princess Bride, and we get to have a costume change! It is so fun!” Natalie is excited about the show as well, but also about one of her classes. “One of my classes this year is child development, and I am honestly really looking forward to having to carry a baby around school and bringing it home.”

Now that we have learned about being a part of SHS, lets learn more about these twirlers! 

Aralynn McHatton, Junior
Competition Level: Intermediate
Aralynn has been twirling for nine years and is coached by Michele Sweet Pangrac of the Twirling Sweet Sensations. Her favorite field trick is a toss leap, front roll, catch. In baton twirling, she has been most inspired by Emma Carr and Adaline Bebo. “They have both inspired me so much and if you look at my twirling style you can tell they have definitely influenced it.” After High School Aralynn hopes to move to Montana or Idaho. 

Micaiah Hubbard, Sophomore
Competition Level: Novice
Micaiah has been twirling for five years and is coached by Michele Sweet Pangrac of the Twirling Sweet Sensations. Her favorite field trick is a two spin. In baton twirling, she has been most inspired by her teammate, and current Penn State Majorette, Bethany Williams. After High School, Micaiah hopes to attend an Ivy League college. 

Natalie Rose DeLeon, Sophomore
Competition Level: Beginner
Natalie has been twirling for five years and is coached by Michele Sweet Pangrac of the Twirling Sweet Sensations. Her favorite field trick is anything two batons. “The crowd thinks it’s really cool, and it’s fun for me!” In baton twirling, she has been most inspired by Caroline Carothers Reed. After High School, Natalie wants to go to a Texas University where she hopes to earn a degree to become either a teacher or social worker, with a possibility of twirling.

Fun Facts!

• Favorite Color – Purple (Aralynn), Pink (Micaiah), Orange (Natalie)
• Favorite Movie or TV Show – “Never Have I Ever” or “Friends” (Aralynn), “Teen Wolf” (Micaiah), “New Girl” (Natalie)
• Favorite Book – “I Got This” by Laurie Hernandez (Aralynn), “Little Fires Everywhere” (Micaiah), “Lovely War” (Natalie)
• Favorite Food – Chocolate Ice Cream (Aralynn), Lasagna (Micaiah), Street Tacos (Natalie)

Favorite Quote…

• Aralynn – “Not all treasure is silver and gold.” – Pirates of the Caribbean 
• Natalie – “Life doesn’t have to be perfect to be wonderful.” – Annette Funicello
• Micaiah – “Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re gonna get!” – Forrest Gump

When they are not twirling, they love to... 

• Aralynn – “Do epoxy work like notebooks or charms!”
• Micaiah – “Play guitar and make my own music.”
• Natalie – “Read and cuddle with my dog.”

Something most people might not know about them is... 

• Aralynn – “I’m a math geek! I love math and am one of those students who is constantly volunteering to show my math in class.”
• Micaiah – “I play over 5 instruments.”
• Natalie – “I taught myself how to crochet a few summers ago and make hats for my family, including my dogs.”

The best non-twirling life skill they have gained from baton twirling is…

• Aralynn – “That you must appreciate where you are and what you’ve done. If you don’t, you won’t learn, you will self-sabotage on what you have. This took me a while to learn.”
• Micaiah – “Practice and hard work really does pay off.”
• Natalie – “I’m normally pretty shy, but baton twirling has definitely brought me out of my shell.”

Most Memorable Advice from your Coach…

• Aralynn – “Remember how long you’ve been in this level and how long the other girls have, to be at the top is fantastic.”
• Micaiah – “Always remember the only person that is stopping you from succeeding is yourself, so believe in yourself!”
• Natalie – “Last year our team motto was no doubt, meaning that when we leave the floor after competing or performing there should be no doubt in our minds that we didn’t just have our best performance.”

Advice for Future High School Twirlers…

• Aralynn – “Create a goal for each practice and then achieve that goal. Even better, write it down to see your progress!”
• Micaiah – “Always push yourself. Even though skills are hard, I promise you’ll get it as long as you push yourself.” 
• Natalie – “Like Nike once said, ‘Just Do It’.”

Favorite Memory as a Baton Twirler…

• Aralynn – “Going to nationals and seeing my idol, Emma Carr, win College MMOA!” 
• Micaiah – “The duet I did with my younger sister.”
• Natalie – “My first ever no drop routine was at regionals, and I remember feeling on top of the world after, and all of my teammates were congratulating me.”

Funniest Memory as a Baton Twirler…

• Aralynn – “When my baton landed right on one of my coaches sonic drink and split the cup right in half spilling her tea everywhere!”
• Micaiah – “When I accidentally chucked my baton across the room, and it was really funny.”
• Natalie – “At nationals when our coach Ms. Michele made us dance in our practice to a funny song to get all of our nerves out before we competed the next few days.”

Favorite thing about marching season…

• Aralynn – “In rifle, we are usually on our own so we have to do something productive, a lot of time we do ladders which is where you start at singles and wake our way up to 5s or 7s, but no one can drop, and everyone has to catch it properly… it’s so funny and a good way to practice our tosses!”
• Micaiah – “Being able to go to all the away games and seeing different people from around the state.” 
• Natalie – “I have made some of the best friends in the band, and because of them, the entirety of marching season is a blast, even when we have what seems like practices that last forever in the Texas heat.”

Favorite Tradition or inside joke within the band program…

• Aralynn – “Sometimes the band will randomly break into this specific woodwind feature during our breaks outside and everyone from woodwind, brass and even color-guard join in and sing the rift!”
• Micaiah – “Whenever the band says: don’t prop open the doors.”
• Natalie – “Singing “boy you look like a burnt chicken nugget” with the whole band to one of our drumline cadences.”

What Will You Miss Most when marching season is over…

• Aralynn – “Our seniors! There the life of the party and color guard will be very boring next year without the Seniors, especially since my best friend is our senior captain.”
• Micaiah – “I will miss traveling and going to football games.”
• Natalie – “I will miss all the Friday night football games. Last year when they were over it was crazy that I had a full free weekend, and I didn’t know what to do.”

We want to say thank you to these twirlers for sharing their Game Day with us through their Instastory Takover, and we enjoyed learning more about them. We wish them luck with their season. Go Knights!

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.