“I used to come from studio dance, so I was doing more Chinese and modern and ballet. Then, freshman year, I tried out for Belles, and it was completely different. It’s a different type of dance: it’s military style, and it really taught me how to work in a team. Going from a varsity member to becoming president it’s definitely a big transition, especially since our director retired last year. Taking on that leadership role, especially through this new era, taught me a lot about the importance of communication.

Something people don’t understand about dance: they think it’s not a sport. I consider it a sport because you compete in it, you work as a team, you’re all working to win. It definitely requires a lot of stamina. We are known for high kicks, and doing cardio for that is [not easy].

[For] dance in general, there’s football season and competition season, which are completely different. With competition, it’s just being in a team unit, all working for one goal. It’s more focused on our own team, improving ourselves and competing against other teams, not just within our district, but also state[wide]. The dances are pretty much the same styles, but it’s for the gym floor instead of football fields. It’s definitely a very unique experience that you wouldn’t get in a classroom.

Football season, the focus is on the football team, cheering them on [with] halftime dances, stand dances. It really introduced me to school spirit — actually going to football games and being part of that atmosphere [on] Friday nights. We learn all our football dances over the summer in August. It’s something called varsity camp, and that’s a three-day, overnight intensive camp where we learn six routines. We take that, and we tweak it for our team, and then we perform wherever the football team is playing. Usually, the social officers, which is what I do, exchange gifts with the other team’s social officers.

Belle Ball is probably the biggest project for the social officers in Belles. Avey [Gannaway] and I went over the summer to tour different venues for the event because this is the end of the year banquet, celebrating everything that the Belles have done. They use their own fundraising money to fund this thing. [We] do spirit nights, and we went around in the summer selling raffle tickets and popcorn. We reach out to vendors about dessert, and there’s a lot of aspects, like designing the program, finding a DJ, working all the details about contracts.

Anyone has the potential to be a good dancer, and everyone’s body is unique in their own way. Everyone has their own style. There’s not a type of person that is good at dance. If you’re scared that you’ll look funny, you shouldn’t be. You should just go for it, and it’ll bring you a lot of good memories.

I think I had a really good high school experience. Just going to school events with a group of friends is super fun. BISA, Mr. Bellaire, the talent show — I feel like we have a lot of events that allow people to be really involved. I’ll be sad to leave my friends and my juniors and underclassmen because our bond is so strong. But after doing this for four years, I think I’m ready to move on.”