From performing to pharmacy: My journey in color guard
Kathryn Bohannan is a third-year PharmD candidate at the University of Missouri–Kansas City School of Pharmacy.
When it comes to color guard, I have more words, stories, and love than can be written, but I will do my best to share some with you.
Color guards consist of marching band members who dance and spin flags, rifles, and sabers. They are the visual aspect of the music and story that is presented by the marching band. I was introduced to color guard when I auditioned for my high school team in eighth grade. Immediately I fell in love and gradually became obsessed with improving my skills over my 4 seasons of fall marching band and winter guard.
Competing on a national level
In my senior year of high school, I attended nationwide auditions for two world-class corps in Drum Corps International (DCI). DCI is a national, competitive drum corps league similar to leagues for professional sports. Each corps holds open auditions across the United States that auditionees attend based on location and preference. Each drum corps consists of brass players, percussionists, and a color guard. For 2 months each summer, the corps tour the United States performing a 12-minute program that is judged and ranked against the other corps in attendance. The culmination of the tour is the DCI World Championships, when after 3 days of competition the title of World Champion is awarded to the corps with the highest overall score.
I was lucky enough to spend 4 years competing in DCI. For 3 years, I performed with the Phantom Regiment, and my final year I performed with the Santa Clara Vanguard. Those summers were simultaneously the best and most challenging of my life. Each day was brand new, and I faced each of them with friends by my side.
Life lessons learned through color guard
After working on a show for months and improving my skills alongside people I love, the resulting feeling of bringing a crowd to their feet is something I will never forget. It is a constant reminder of why enduring the exhausting audition process, grueling heat, overnight bus rides, and muscles too sore to relieve were all worth it. Drum corps made me reconsider what I thought a good work ethic was and showed me I am capable of more than I ever imagined.
It is wild to think about how I used to spend hours spinning in my front yard until my hands would tear, and how frustrating it would be when I got stuck on a new move or kept getting hit by my equipment. But without each of these sessions, I would not have performed with the Phantom Regiment, and I would have never known the surreal awe of standing at awards as a member of the Santa Clara Vanguard, holding hands with a great friend, listening to the announcer name us the 2018 DCI World Champions.
Now, as a student pharmacist, I recognize how vital the optimism, grit, teamwork, and perspective that drum corps gave me are. I have the confidence to try things that scare me, patience to fail and learn from those failures, and dedication to slowly grow into a successful pharmacist. While not everything I am is from drum corps, I use the many lessons it taught me every day.
Much like drum corps, pharmacy is a small world full of friends and coworkers going through some of the best and worst moments of their lives. My pharmacy journey has taken me through virtual learning, challenging leadership roles, new competitions, serving my community, and learning more than I ever imagined, but I am nowhere near done. I look forward to the adventures to come, and I thank you for being part of it!