Southern Nazarene’s band is always exciting to watch, and the color guard adds another dimension to their performances.
The SNU color guard is made up of two members, Megan Stevens and Kaitlyn Brougher. The two are talented, hardworking, and passionate about the visual element they bring to the band.
Stevens, who is from Clearwater, Kansas, has deep family ties to SNU. “I had a lot of family that came here; my grandmother came when it was BNC, and then three of her daughters came here, including my mom,” Stephens mentioned. “The scholarships and everything came together, and now I’m here.”
For Brougher, a native of Eugene, Oregon, it was a slightly different story. A connection with her youth pastor led her nearly 2,000 miles away from home. “I had a youth pastor that came here, and scholarships and money worked out, and so I came here,” Brougher claimed.
The two team members entered the guard with completely different levels of experience, which fostered a strong mentorship dynamic between them.
“I got into color guard in middle school; I ended up joining out of curiosity and because I knew the coach. I really enjoyed it, went to high school and wanted to do it some more,” Stevens explained. “I did it for all 4 years and got to captain my senior year, which was really cool. I knew I wanted to do band and didn’t necessarily want to stop doing color guard, so I was a little disappointed when SNU didn’t originally have color guard, but the chance to restart one here was really exciting.”
Brougher, on the other hand, had never even seen color guard before coming to SNU. “We didn’t have a color guard in Oregon; I had never seen color guard before I came here. Dr. Dra mentioned to me they were trying to start a color guard again, so I started talking to Fairbanks about it, and then I joined,” Brougher exclaimed.
To bridge the gap in experience, Stevens took on a mentorship role to teach Brougher the fundamentals of color guard. Stevens ended up teaching Brougher 24 different moves during seven days of band camp over the summer.
“She had a Google Doc of all of the moves I had to learn. I was very tired,” Brougher chuckled.
By providing visual artistry and movement, the color guard’s addition to the band adds a vibrant element of skill to the program. Stevens and Brougher have worked hard this season to bring the guard back to life, elevating campus performance to the max.
Photo provided by: Zoie Atland