By Gail Wood
Three years ago, as Dayna Dayton fondly reflected on her fun experiences with her high school drill team at a reunion, an unexpected ambition surfaced.
“I wanted my daughter to experience it,” Dayna said.
And that’s how on every Tuesday and Thursday mornings for 90 minutes Griffin School’s gym is magically changed into a dancing music hall for ten middle school girls. Among them is Dayton’s daughter, Meysa, now an eighth grader.
Also there, helping Dayna coach at every early morning practice from 7:00 a.m. to 8:30 a.m., is Bev Chase, who was on the same Tumwater High School drill team with Dayna 30 years ago. High school friends have been reunited.
At the same moment, as the music from Dayna turns on a cheerful tune and her drill team practices their routines, she’s coach, mom and friend.
“I was on drill team in high school and it was the best part of my high school experience,” Dayna said. “I wanted my daughter to experience it.”
It must be fun. Why else would 10 middle school aged girls show up at practice at 7 a.m. twice a week?
“It’s definitely fun,” Meysa said after a recent Tuesday morning’s practice. “I like dancing. It’s a passion of mine. I’m going to do it in high school. It’s just a great experience. It’s so much fun.”
In the spring of 2011, Dayna went to a reunion of her high school drill team. A friend there prompted Dayna to start a program at Griffin School. That’s all the prompting Dayna, a dental hygienist, needed to go talk with Griffin’s vice principal, Doug Anderson, about starting a drill team at the school.
“My daughter was going into sixth grade and I really felt she needed something,” Dayna said, reflecting on her decision three years ago. “Drill team was such an amazing experience for me. So, I went to Mr. Anderson and I said you need to get a drill team started here at Griffin. And he said, ‘Great, we’ll sign you up to coach.’”
From the first practice, Dayna, along with the fun and good times, has included discipline in the practices. Anyone who shows up late has to run a lap around the gym. Anyone who continues to talk during a drill practice, has to run a lap or do push-ups. She keeps everyone on the same page.
“Nice job, ladies,” Dayna said recently after they finished practicing a routine.
As the girls perform their dances, marching in place as they move synchronized pompoms, Dayna claps her hands when they’re supposed to move. Their routine is precise.
Meysa, who wants to turn out for drill team at Capital High School next year, shares her mom’s passion for drill team. And she enjoys having her mom coach her – most of the time.
“If I’m mad at my drill team coach, it’s kind of hard to make the transition that I’m not mad at my mom even though it’s the same person,” Meysa said with a smile. “But it’s nice because I get to have her as my coach and I get to pick on her.”
Like Dayna, Bev has fond memories of her experiences with drill team in high school. And like Dayna, she wants young girls today to share in those similar moments.
“I loved it,” Bev said. “It was great. It was fun. I had a lot of friends that I made that I still have. It was a great experience. You learn a lot. It was the best part of high school for me.”
Mixed in with the dancing, music and fun is hard work – lots of hard work. Meysa said after practices she changes clothes because “I’m all sweaty.” Fun includes hard work for these kids.
“There is a lot of hard work,” Bev said. “There’s a lot of dedication. It takes a lot of time. It’s a lot of work.”
Accompanying the hard work is the big reward – performing in front of an appreciative crowd.
“Once you hear that crowd, you’re hooked,” Dayna said with a smile. “Then you know they love you.”
And the anxiety of being in front of a crowd, the fear of someone watching you and rejecting you, goes away. Eventually.
“It takes a while, but once you get out there, it’s an amazing feeling once you get that adoration from a crowd,” Dayna said. “You do a good job and your hard work paid off.”
That lesson, Dayna said, transfers to a life lesson. The girls on her drill team learn that if they work hard they will have success.
“And it builds confidence and self-esteem,” Dayna said. “When they have it and they know their steps they don’t even know that we’re there. They’re just performing for the crowd.”
Besides performing for Griffin, Dayna’s drill team does several performances throughout the school year. Later this month, they’ll perform at the halftime of a Capital High School boys basketball game. They’ll also perform at two competitions in February at Olympia High School. Just before Christmas they performed at four assisted living facilities.
“We took Christmas cards, visited with them and made a day of it,” Dayna said about their December trip to local assisted living facilities. “I was just so proud of my girls.”
Each year, those visits to local seniors has been a highlight for Dayna and her team.
“I get very emotional about it,” Dayna said. “At the end of the year, I ask them what was the best part of the year and overwhelmingly that’s the best part for them.”
It’s another memory to tuck away for Dayna and her drill team.
Another reason Dayna has enjoyed coaching her daughter’s drill teams has been the impact it’s had on school work. Parents have told her that turning out for the drill team has been an incentive to keep their grades up. They can’t turn out if their grades aren’t good enough.
“Every year we’ll have parents who come to me and say their daughter is really struggling with her grades and the only thing that gets her to do her homework is that she knows if her grades aren’t high enough she can’t perform,” Dayna said. “What a blessing that is to hear – that maybe this child is studying more and getting better grades because they want to be a part of something bigger. That’s really neat for me.”
It’s been just another reason for Dayna to coach.
