Friday Night Lights Feature - Highland Park High School

Hello Texas Twirl Fans!

Another great weekend of twirling all over Texas, and we could not love it more! That also means it is time for another Friday Night Lights Feature Interview with some of our fabulous Texas High School 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!

Our next Friday Night Lights Feature is the Highland Park High School Feature Twirlers!

Highland Park High School, located in Dallas, Texas, is the home of the Fighting Scots, and these two awesome twirlers! HPHS Feature Twirlers, Karianne Grove and Mimi Tafel, love getting to rock the navy and gold and support their team. 

A fun fact about Highland Park is that there have only been seven Fighting Scot Feature Twirlers, and they are two of them! We asked them what the audition process was to get themselves on this short list. “We don’t really have an audition process. Karianne got in contact with the band director before her freshman year and Mimi emailed him before hers. Since there haven't been many twirlers, it just depends on what the band director wants!”

Highland Park has a ton of school spirit that really brings them together. “We love the close knitted community at Highland Park! Whether there’s a football game or a lacrosse match there are always HP students out there support!” 

That amount of school spirit has to lead to some great traditions, so we asked Karianne and Mimi to tell us about their favorites! “We have some really great ones! We do hoco spirit week but only seniors get to dress up, people plan it all throughout high school and it’s always so fun to see all the great ideas! A kind of funny one is that our head football coach wears a fedora, and football's motto has kind of become “fear the fedora”…all the senior football players wear one on game days!”

Even the band has their own set of traditions! “There are a lot of great band traditions, but one everyone loves is the kilts! Seniors get to wear kilts that we’ve had for decades to football games and on senior night they all wear them and participate in a drum dance where one senior gets to dance on a drum! Hey Jordan, is also a fun song that the band came up with! We sing a song that goes like “Heyyyy Jordan…” and at the end someone “proposes” to him with a random object! Last year, Karianne “proposed” to him with her airpods!”

With all the fun and excitement, we wanted to know what Karianne and Mimi look forward to the most, and they said it is of course the Blacklight Pep Rally! “It’s a yearly tradition that falls on the week of Halloween!  Our cheer team, dance team, colorguard, drumline and the twirlers perform at it and do Halloween-themed performances! We use light-up batons and wear white while performing so we light up in the dark!”

Now that we have learned more about life at HPHS, let’s learn more about Karianne and Mimi!

Karianne Grove, Senior
Competition Level: Intermediate Senior
Karianne has been twirling for 6 years. She is a member of the Texas Touch of Class and is coached by Sheila Payne Rigelsky. The competition title Karianne is the proudest of earning was the 2023 Beginner 16+ Southwest Regional Solo Winner. Her favorite competition trick is the head roll in her solo, and her favorite field trick is anything with two batons. In baton twirling, she was most inspired by TTOC Matriarch, Shirley Payne. “Miss Shirley always knew what her twirlers needed, she was strict but if someone was struggling she was there to give them a motivating speech and tell them to keep working!” After high school, Karianne hopes to be able to twirl in college, but mostly she just hopes to find a college that she loves with a great community!

Mimi Tafel, Sophomore
Competition Level: Beginner Junior
Mimi has been twirling for 6 years. She is a member of the Texas Touch of Class and is coached by Sheila Payne Rigelsky. The competition title Mimi is the proudest of earning was the Novice Basic Skills Pageant at Regionals when she was in 6th grade. Her favorite competition trick is a two spin catch back hand in an illusion. “I just think it’s super fun!” Her favorite field trick is a “cartwheel for sure! I love incorporating a little gymnastics into twirling!” In baton twirling, she has been most inspired by her co-feature, Karianne. “She has an insane work ethic and I’ll for sure miss her when she graduates.” After High School, her dream school is Boston College and “I would love to start a twirling position there if possible!”

Fun Facts!

• Favorite Color – Purple (Karianne), Neon Sparkly Pink (Mimi)
• Favorite TV Show or Movie – Criminal Minds (Karianne), Suits (Mimi)
• Favorite Book – The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer (Karianne), Little Women (Mimi)

Must have Game Day drink…

• Karianne - “Shirley Temples.”
• Mimi - “Celsius mixed with pink lemonade.”

Favorite Quote or Life Motto…

• Karianne - “Everything to achieve, nothing to prove.”
• Mimi - “One moment doesn’t define you.”

When they are not twirling, they love to… 

• Karianne - “Go to concerts, hang out with friends, and decorate my room.”
• Mimi - “I love to row on White Rock Lake and read!”

Something people might not know about them… 

• Karianne - “I’ve stoned all of my field costumes except one of them myself!”
• Mimi - “I’m obsessed with Starbucks!”

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

• Karianne - “The ability to bounce back from mistakes, it’s easy to get discouraged after a bad performance/outcome but learning to move on and use those moments to motivate yourself is a great skill in both life and twirling!”
• Mimi - “I’ve learned resilience! Through the many performances where I’ve dropped in front of large audiences or made a little mistake, I’ve learned you have to stay strong, and that life goes on!"

The most memorable advice from their coach(es)…

• Karianne - “It’s ok to have bad contests/performances. Not everything is going to go your way sometimes and the best thing you can do is handle it with grace and have a short-term memory.”
• Mimi - “Early is on time, on time is late, and late is just unacceptable.”

Advice to future high school twirlers… 

• Karianne - “Have fun! Twirling in front of your peers can be stressful but take risks and don’t take yourself too seriously, there will be good and bad performances but in the end, you’ll look back and only remember the good, school twirling is what you make it!”
• Mimi - “Be confident! Just go for it, at the end of the day no one in the audience could do what you do! You are so awesome!”

Funniest memory as a baton twirler… 

• Karianne - “My jazz shoe came off during a pep rally performance and I had to finish and try to spin on tights!”
• Mimi - “One time on the field, I slipped out of my illusion, and I landed back down on the field!”

Favorite thing about marching season… 

• Karianne - “Being able to meet all the little kids at games! They’re always the absolute sweetest and being able to make an impression on the next generation is such an amazing feeling!”
• Mimi - “I love being able to perform to large audiences! I love the hype crowd and lively stands!”

What will they miss most when marching season is over… 

• Karianne - “Everything! I’ve had the best 4 years at Highland Park, and I’m so sad it’s going to be over! From the environment at games and pep rallies, the support from students, faculty, and the community, and being able to twirl with Mimi, I couldn’t have asked for a better high school twirling experience!”
• Mimi - “Karianne! She’s a senior and this is our last season together!”

Thank you to Karianne and Mimi for sharing their Game Day with us. We wish these two a wonderful remainder of their field season, and a great year of twirling. Go Fighting Scots!

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.