Two of Plant City High School’s Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps regiments are getting ready to show off their Raider pride to the Sunshine State.
On Saturday, April 16, the school’s Armed Exhibition Drill Team and Male-Female Color Guard will be competing for state titles at George Jenkins High School in Lakeland.
Qualifying for a state competition is a huge achievement for any school, but JROTC instructor and leadership teacher Martin Soto said Plant City’s teams have made vast improvements this year. It’s the first year the drill team will be going to the state competition, just two years after forming.
“Plant City never had a drill team, and we started one,” Soto said.
It’s the second consecutive year that the color guard will be returning to the state competition. After placing fourth in 2015, the guard is hoping to wow the judges.
Twinning
The judges at the state competition will likely be seeing double during Plant City’s color guard presentation.
The four-person team is made up of two sets of Plant City siblings, including twins Dedrick and Zedrick Gonzalez and sisters Stephany and Sophie Vera.
It’s the first time in the school’s history that two sets of siblings have been in the color guard. But the quartet is hoping that the shared DNA will bring them luck during competition.
Plant City junior Sophie Vera, the commander for the color guard unit, was responsible for putting the team together this year. Her first recruit was simple: her sister, Stephany. Responsible for holding both the United States flag and the Florida flag, the sisters work on keeping everything in sync to impress the judges, especially their marching.
“When we go, my hope is to do better than what we did last year,” Sophie Vera said. “We’re presenting the colors that represent our nation, and we have to show respect for them.”
At the start of the school year, both Vera sisters noticed another dynamic duo that would make their color guard complete. The Gonzalez brothers had just relocated to Florida from New York, where they also had belonged to JROTC. They were instantly recruited.
At the state competition, the team will be judged on how well they follow commands, how in sync they are and their overall presentation.
“It can be stressful, but it’s a lot of fun,” Dedrick Gonzalez said.
“We’re dependent on each other,” Stephany Vera added. “We’re not a one-man team.”
Armed and Ready
A few hours before the Gonzalez twins present the colors, they’ll be spinning 8-pound rifles with Plant City’s Armed Exhibition Drill Team against 30 other Florida schools.
In addition to the twins, the team is made up of five other members. On April 16, they will perform an eight-minute routine for the judges, featuring commands, rifle spins and in-step marching.
It’s a complicated process with great attention to detail, but the members of the team pride themselves on being fast learners. They created and memorized the routine that they demonstrated at a February state qualifier
competition in two weeks. The routine earned them top honors.
“We were really surprised,” team member Alex Foley said. “It takes a lot of dedication. We started the team, but we never put it together completely. When we did, we worked hard and we had two weeks to put it together and polish it.”
Armed Exhibition Drill Team Captain Michael Maldonado, a junior, will be leading the team at the April competition. Like his fellow teammates, this is his first year going to the competition.
“It’s a silent exhibition,” Maldonado said. Though he leads the team, he cannot call out commands during the presentation. “It takes a lot of teamwork, dedication and discipline.”
Contact Emily Topper at etopper@plantcityobserver.com.