{"id":12801,"date":"2014-09-30T12:29:26","date_gmt":"2014-09-30T17:29:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=12801"},"modified":"2014-10-20T17:19:32","modified_gmt":"2014-10-20T22:19:32","slug":"james-two-fort-hays-state-twirlers-win-awards-in-national-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=12801","title":{"rendered":"Two Fort Hays State Twirlers Win Awards in National Competition"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/pre>\n
Two Fort Hays State University twirlers competed in a national competition sanctioned by the National Baton Twirling Association this past July in Indiana at the University of Notre Dame. Shelby Schumacher, Hays, Ks., freshman, won the Beth Wilson Wow Award for creativity and show, and also placed first in flag twirling. She brought home two trophies and six medals. Molly Johnson, Phoenix, Ariz., junior, brought home seven medals and three trophies.<\/p>\n
Schumacher started twirling and competing at the age of two, on both team and individual levels. She is currently performing with the Fort Hays State University Marching Tigers until her next competition in May.<\/p>\n
\u201cI twirled with the Hays High marching band,” Schumacher said. “I twirled with my middle school as well, and I\u2019ve twirled with Shannon\u2019s Stars Athletic Club in Salina.\u201d<\/p>\n
To prepare for the competition, Schumacher practiced with her team throughout the summer. When she is not competing, she will practice three to four times a week.<\/p>\n
She has won local, regional, and national titles, competed at state events and regional competitions, and has always competed in the NBTA competition. At nationals, Schumacher competes with states such as Colorado, North Dakota, Nebraska, and Missouri, and with countries like Canada and Mexico.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn order to qualify for nationals, you either have to win a state title or a regional title,” Schumacher said.<\/p>\n
Molly Johnson performed with her high school in Phoenix, and she was a feature twirler there for four years. She was part of the Phoenix Superstars, a twirling team in Arizona, and is part of Shannon\u2019s Stars Athletic Twirling Club. She is currently performing the Marching Tigers as well here at Fort Hays State University with Schumacher.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started twirling when I was three and a half or four,” Johnson said. “My next door neighbors twirled and we were really close. My mom asked, “Don\u2019t you want to be like them?\u2019 and I thought “Of course!\u2019 So I decided to twirl, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnson practices daily, for two to three hours. She started competing at the age of four.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve won state regional, national, and Grand National, and I\u2019ve also competed in a different system, USTA, as well,” Johnson said. “So I\u2019ve won a few awards with USTA, but I\u2019m mainly an NBTA twirler. I also compete, like with Shelby.\u201d<\/p>\n
The United States Twirling Association is a national and nonprofit organization dedicated to the positive youth development through the sport of baton twirling.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwirling gives you the chance to meet so many people that you would have never thought of meeting,” Johnson said. “It gives you the basic life skills of knowing how to carry yourself and how to handle yourself under pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Two Fort Hays State University twirlers competed in a national competition sanctioned by the National Baton Twirling Association this past July in Indiana at the… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7349],"tags":[3158,69,3160,3159,3155,3156,3161,3157,1495,310,290,3154,3162],"class_list":["post-12801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","tag-beth-wilson-wow-award","tag-fhsu","tag-marching-tigers","tag-molly-johnson","tag-national-baton-twirling-association","tag-nbta","tag-shannons-stars-athletic-twirling-club","tag-shelby-schumacher","tag-tigermedianet","tag-tigers","tag-tmn","tag-twirlers","tag-united-states-twirling-association"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12801"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14494,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12801\/revisions\/14494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}