Each year the LHS Winter Guard has the chance to display their skills on the basketball court. Now in 2026, they are taking time to rewind to 2021 and honor the show that brought them into this world.
Winter Guard is an indoor sport which combines the aspects of color guard and performance art to create and present a show each season. LHS’s 2026 show is called “Missing You.” This show was the result of the first winter season the LHS Winter Guard ever did, about five years ago, right in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to this, they were not able to perform it at a competition, leading to a video they submitted to the Winter Guard International or WGI. This video was judged by professionals and ended up making WGI World finals with an “excellent” and “superior” rating for their performance in scholastic regional A. Coming into the 2021 season, the girls had not thought too hard about how they would do, but how they would improve their skills. So, when the scores came back, past LHS color guard captain Corissa Marlette and the rest of the team were all shocked and impressed by what they had accomplished.
“There were no expectations from previous years, and this was our first time indoor marching, so the goal was to just have fun and better our spinning skills for our next, hopefully, non-COVID-filled season,” said Marlette. “We were just happy to be there and to be showing the world of WGI what South Dakota was capable of.”
The new 2026 team consists of 22 members, only four of whom are upperclassmen. The underclassmen have been the majority of the LHS Winter Guard this past year, but you cannot tell by just looking. The captains, LHS juniors Quinn Mebius, Dena Tarrell and LHS sophomore Ellia Noordsy all have a hard time believing most of the team have a year or less of experience under their belts.
“[They have been doing] really, really well,” said Mebius. “It’s hard sometimes to tell that it’s underclassmen.”
The 2026 winter guard season has a new coach, Kiley Coyne. Coyne is a LHS color guard alumni. Originally, she played and marched clarinet in her freshman year of high school, but joined color guard her sophomore year and fell in love with it. She kept spinning throughout college while getting her Master of Music in Conducting and Bachelor of Fine Arts in Instrumental in Music Education at the University of South Dakota, and now has been doing color guard for 22 years. Juggling her full-time job, part-time job and coaching is hard enough, so they have practices on Wednesdays, Fridays and some Saturdays at Axtell Park School.
“This team, of course, 15 years later, is far and away better than the team that I was on,” said Coyne. “It’s been really cool to work with students that are so into dance and doing this really in hard technical stuff that we just weren’t doing at that time.”
Winter guard, while similar to fall guard, is a bit different. When it comes to being captain, it is a little easier as they have less to manage and a shorter season. Winter guard seasons usually last from December to March or April, and getting the show learned, cleaned and performed is no easy task, especially with moments like a major sabre toss, lifts and a newly added ending. These spectacular moments would not be possible without the captains.
“Missing You” has a deep connection to many of the team members, as it was performed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of the team’s lives were affected by it, and some even lost loved ones, so the team has learned to go about this show in a way that speaks to them. While it is the 2021 show, the team tries to think of it as a new type or genre of a show that all of them have not done before, and are now thinking of what they want it to be.
“It’s really cool to see changes that we’re making to make it, maybe not better, because [the 2021 team] did a really good job, but different,” said Coyne.
