Let’s give it a twirl

Lisa Scheller/Mirror photo
To top off her costume, Linsey wears a tiara that Sivyer wore on her wedding day.
Linsey High makes a quick twist of her wrist and tosses her baton high into the air.
The silver rod sparkles brightly as it spins in the afternoon sunlight. With graceful, fluid movements, Linsey catches the baton and continues twirling it as if it had never left her hands.
Bonnie Sivyer, her baton teacher, smiles as she watches. Two years ago, Linsey had never thought of twirling a baton. Now Linsey, who is a junior, has twirled at parades, football games and even a state competition.
And, she’s wanting to encourage other girls to join her.
Charles VanMiddlesworth, Tonganoxie’s band instructor, hopes she will. Until two years ago when Sivyer approached VanMiddlesworth about volunteering to teach baton lessons, the school had no twirlers.

Lisa Scheller/Mirror photo
Linsey High and baton coach Bonnie Sivyer, finish a practice session at the football field.
“It’s something we want to keep going,” VanMiddlesworth said. “Linsey is amazing at this — she’s taken off as a performer and is really good at it.”
Daughter helps out
When Sivyer moved to Tonganoxie five years ago, she was surprised the marching band had no baton twirlers.
A twirler since her teenage years, Sivyer decided to do something about that.
She told VanMiddlesworth she would teach twirling lessons for free if the girls could perform with the band. He agreed.
“I went home and told my daughter we have the OK to start the group, but we don’t have any group,” Sivyer said.
She laughed as she recalled the enterprise shown by her daughter, Meagan, now a junior at THS.
“By the next day she had signed up five of her friends, and three of them went for it,” Sivyer said.
The start in the fall of 2002 came with challenges — not only learning how to twirl, but also coming up with a uniform. The only available uniform was one Sivyer had worn in high school.
At first, the girls shared that costume, taking turns hurriedly trading uniforms between songs.
The fit wasn’t perfect.
“But it was close enough,” Linsey said, laughing. “It was elastic, thank goodness.”
This year, when Linsey ended up being the school’s only baton twirler, she decided she wanted a uniform of her own. So the teen invested about $400 to pay for her uniform. Both Linsey and Sivyer hope that, as the program grows, the school, or some other sponsor, will be willing to pay for the twirlers’ uniforms.
There are rules to baton twirling, said Sivyer. One of the most important, she added, is this: “When you drop your baton, act like you intentionally dropped it. Just pick it up gracefully and move along.”
That’s what Linsey did during her first parade.
“I dropped it one or five or maybe seven times,” Linsey said, laughing. “I don’t remember how many times, but I made it through. I was scared, but I was hooked.”
Another rule, one Sivyer ruthlessly reminds her students, is to have good posture.
“She used to slump,” Sivyer said, looking at Linsey who was sitting up straight next to her. “I’m always on her to sit up straight.”
Just call me ‘Mom’
The two laugh about Sivyer’s crackdown on slouching.
“She’s got this posture thing worked out on me,” Linsey said. “Except for the chin up, she’s always tells me to keep my chin up.”
But not too much, Sivyer said.
“She overdoes it and if it rains she’ll drown,” she said.
The bantering between the two isn’t just from baton lessons. Linsey and Sivyer’s daughter Meagan have been friends since the Sivyers moved to Tonganoxie.
“She’s been like a fixture at our house since then — along with some other kids — but she’s been the one that’s stuck around,” Sivyer said. “She calls me mom most of the time.”
In fact, Sivyer said she used to call her own baton teacher “Mom.” Baton lessons changed her life, she said.
“I was an awkward, shy child,” Sivyer said. “I was afraid to smile because I was self-conscious about everything. She’d make me lift my head up and hold up my chin and soon I had confidence. She’d say ‘Strut your stuff.'”
And obviously, that’s what Linsey has been doing.
At last fall’s Neowallah festival in which the THS band competed against other school bands, Linsey received a 1-minus rating for her solo act — the highest rating given that day.
And, at the Missouri baton twirling competition, held March 1, Linsey competed in two events. She received the highest score possible in the divisional novice solo division, receiving a first-place ribbon, and she received a medal for taking first place in the open competition as a novice soloist.
Volunteering to teach
Linsey and Sivyer want to see the school’s baton twirling program continue to grow, and they’re willing to help.
Last month, Linsey talked to students in the eighth grades about twirling.
“After that, four girls came up and talked to Mr. Van about doing it next year,” Linsey said.
To teach them, Linsey, and Sivyer, will instruct the girls during first-hour band.
“She will be teaching all the basics to them and I’ll be helping with the routines and with synchronizing the group,” Sivyer said.
Linsey said she wants to continue to hone her own skills, as well.
“Hopefully, she’ll be teaching me more and more, until I tap out,” Linsey added.
- To top off her costume, Linsey wears a tiara that Sivyer wore on her wedding day.
- Linsey High and baton coach Bonnie Sivyer, finish a practice session at the football field.