ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, October 2, 1996 TAG: 9610020011
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KAREN ADAMS STAFF WRITER
Back in August, when most students were enjoying the last slanting sun of summer, the Cave Spring High School drill team was pounding away at eight-hour practices in a sweltering gym.
It was worth it, though. The repetition, the chewed fingernails.
When the 22-member team dances at Friday's homecoming football game, sequins flashing in the lights, the cameras will click and kids will dance along in the stands.
But what the cheering fans may not know is that this is one of the last groups of its kind in the area, as high school drill teams slowly die out across the country - victims of thinning school budgets and a shortage of dance directors.
Spectators also may not know that this tradition was started 35 years ago at Cave Spring, and that many overlapping lives have helped it survive.
They also won't know about the individual dancers' sweat, fatigue and strains, the long days at band camp in the hot sun.
But the results will speak for themselves.
* * *
It takes time to become a team.
On the first day of practice, the drill team shares the gym with the flag corps in one corner and Kristen Dalton, the baton twirler, in another. All three corners have different music playing.
After a 40-minute aerobic warmup, drill team director Lynn Hampton explains the halftime routine. It will have an Olympic theme, with dances from foreign countries.
She shows them a diagram of the football field, with complicated dotted-line formations indicating their patterns. She demonstrates a swirly Spanish number.
In baggy T-shirts and gym shorts, the dancers scuff their way through it. Sneakers squeak against the floor. Turns unravel. Hampton makes them start over.
She stands beside each one, working out the knots. ``Hold your heads up,'' she calls out. She offers a hand for balance.
``All right,'' she says. ``We're going to do it slow so it'll be nice and sharp, and then we're going to do it fast.'' They wipe perspiration from their foreheads. ``If you make a mistake, keep going.''
After a while, she hoists bundles of filmy chiffon in yellow, red, blue, green and black - the colors of the Olympic rings - and explains that they will run onto the field with the fabric held streaming overhead.
This elicits laughter, especially when Hampton herself gets tangled up.
They try it once and shake their heads. Standing with the fabric draped over their heads like veils, the ends trailing on the floor, they listen to further instructions. Hampton calls out: ``First we'll walk, then we'll run, then we'll do turns. Pay attention.''
They try it again, all faces serious. Nothing distracts them - neither flying flags nor boys who peer in and laugh.
Lynn critiques the performance. The gym is getting stuffy.
Some of the girls pull their sweaty hair into ponytails. They gulp water from sports bottles. A few glance at their watches.
* * *
Hampton, 27, remembers standing in those sweaty shoes.
A Cave Spring graduate herself, she was on the drill team throughout high school and was captain her senior year.
She remembers further back than that as well. She describes the children who watch the practices with their faces pressed against the fence. ``I was one of those little kids,'' says Hampton, whose yard backed up to the practice area.
A dancer since she could walk, Hampton knew she wanted to be on the drill team. She joined as a sophomore - and had such a good time that as an adult she offered to direct, even though at first there was no money to pay her. Now she earns a small salary pieced together from three budgets.
A professional dance teacher as well, she doesn't mind the low pay and long hours - sometimes tapping out routines at home long after midnight. She says that nobody would do this for the money, that it's the love of kids that makes her want to help them. ``This is the only opportunity for girls to dance in school,'' she says. ``It gives them something positive to do.''
Band director Barry Tucker, who had Hampton as a student, says, ``She's a real professional, and she's very good with the kids. We go back a long way.''
* * *
``I'd think she'd get frustrated with us,'' says Anna Sargent, 15, who is new to the team. ``But she's done it. She remembers what it was like.''
Sarah Rutherford, 15, says simply, ``I love her.'' A runner and basketball player, she says that this is a new experience for her, even though she has been dancing with Hampton since age 3. She likes it a lot, ``but you've got to be ready for commitment.''
Amanda Harpold, 17, says, ``It takes a lot more energy than you'd think.'' She is the team captain - and also plays flute, clarinet and bass clarinet in the band - and wants to study dance when she goes to college next year.
Anne Richardson, 18, says that the older students are expected to help the newcomers, something that is done throughout the band. ``I remember when I was a sophomore, the older girls helped me. It makes it a lot easier.'' Richardson, who is team secretary and co-captain - and a basketball cheerleader - says that most of all it helps that Hampton is their friend.
* * *
Tucker, the band director, says it's a shame that drill teams are dying, especially those in conjunction with music programs. But they require a lot of fund-raising, they're hard to choreograph, and dance music for marching bands is limited. In recent years, he says, flag teams have become dominant because they're visually dramatic; dance teams are pure skill and less spectacular.
When Tucker, a Cave Spring graduate, arrived in 1989, he directed all five elements of the band himself - wind instruments, percussion, drill team, flag corps and baton twirler (``feature twirler''). Now he has help. Besides Hampton's leadership of the drill team, Bev Rhymer directs the flag corps, Jason Dooley is the percussion instructor, and Melvin Bentley is assistant band director. The help has paid off; the band consistently receives high marks in competitions.
``One of my main concerns is that we all work as a team,'' Tucker says. ``I give them a pep talk every Friday night: `Let's keep this all together.' I try to emphasize everybody being kind to each other.''
He sees them as a 160-member family. There are friendships across the groups, too, as some students are in both band and drill team.
He also works hard to make sure that no one group stands out. ``It's like a three-ring circus out there,'' he says, with the center ring changing to focus on different students.
It's time consuming and demanding, but he can't imagine doing anything else. ``You have the same sense of accomplishment that they get,'' he says. ``There are so many things they gain from it.''
Tucker, 42, understands the impact that being part of the group, whatever the role, will have on these students' lives. ``I have four letters sitting on my desk right now from former students that say, `I never realized just how special it was.'''
* * *
When the team was first started in 1961, it was not part of the band, and it was a true ``drill'' team that performed precision, military-style moves. Things began to change when band director Bill Svec arrived in 1969. He stayed for 20 years, until he retired and passed the baton to his former student Barry Tucker.
Although he had to manage the whole group alone, Svec was able to introduce a few dance steps to the drill team. He also developed a reputation as a taskmaster. ``We demanded perfection: in posture, in carriage and in performance,'' he says proudly.
Until 1980, the drill team wore heavy majorette boots with taps on the toes and heels. For the Christmas parade, they attached jingle bells as well. ``You could hear them coming,'' says Svec, 61. Although officially retired, he now teaches part time at Ferrum College and is an announcer on WVTF-FM, Roanoke's public radio station. Now and then he attends the Cave Spring football games to see what the band is up to.
Like Tucker, Svec has heard from grateful graduates. After the movie ``Mr. Holland's Opus'' came out, Svec received three letters of appreciation, one from a drill team member from the early '70s. ``That really tore me up,'' he says.
* * *
On Friday night, at halftime, the loudspeaker will blare: ``The Cave Spring High School Band!'' Parents will cheer, kids will wave in the stands.
The musicians will sound like pros, flocks of flags will catch the light, the batons will sail high. And the drill team, like a Broadway chorus line, will be out there smiling.
Sarah won't wobble as she steadies her big fan like a shield. Missy's hand will be on her hip correctly. Elizabeth will not back into the trombones.
Lynn Hampton will be in the bleachers with goosebumps on her arms.
And every one of her dancers will be holding her head up.
As Bill Svec says, ``We hear a lot about athletics changing kids' lives, but music does too. Any kind of art does.''
LENGTH: Long : 176 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: PHILIP HOLMAN/Staff. 1. Rita Devlin re-tapes her footby CNBbefore afternoon practice during camp at Ferrum College. 2. The Cave
Spring High School band drill team in performance during the Sept.
13 football game. 3. Shar Taliaferro and her teammates try to manage
the reams of yellow chiffon that later will become part of their
performance routine. 4. The tambourine number (above), performed to
Khachaturian's ``Saber Dance,'' always makes the team laugh.
Director Lynn Hampton (left) is a Cave Spring drill team alumna and
was captain her senior year. 5. The drill team meets three days each
week for practice sessions, which always begin with a long warm-up
of stretching and other exercises. 6. Director
Lynn Hampton (right) is a Cave Spring drill team alumna and was
captain her senior year. 7. Using large fans as props (left), the
team practices ``The Chicken Dance,'' the tune of which is a
European folk song. 8. During a break from practice at band camp
(above), roommates 16-year-old Amber Mayhue (left) and 17-year-old
Rita Devlin discover frozen candy bars in their dorm-room
freezer at Ferrum College. color.