from the DMN: Kelli Montgomery, SMU's Baton Twirler

[MrMustang1965]

There were few empty seats when the twirler strutted into Highland Park High School's gymnasium a few weeks ago to perform a solo routine during a football pep rally.

As she did, throngs of parents, students, teachers and even the players jumped up and started chanting "Car-ly Ben-der ... Car-ly Ben-der." They applauded when she tossed the first baton in the air. They whooped and hollered louder when she picked up the second.

By the time the 15-year-old started rolling the thin batons around the back of her neck as the Harlem Globetrotters do with basketballs, the cheers drowned out the accompanying music.

Carly didn't miss a beat, but the nationally ranked twirler later called the roar of the crowd a little "nerve-racking."

"I couldn't hear the music," she said as friends and relatives crowded around to congratulate her.

In the Park Cities, Carly and Kelli Montgomery of Southern Methodist University share a distinction as the only twirlers at their schools. Nationwide, they belong to a diminishing breed.

By some estimates, the number of girls spinning batons for high school bands once reached as many as 1 million. Today, the number may be a quarter of that.

"I think it disappeared probably because there weren't that many twirlers in high school," said Sheila Regilsky, a former world champion twirler who coaches Carly. "It's not an Olympic sport. The only way it was even shown was either on a football field" or at a competition.

Family ties also seem to make a difference.

Ms. Montgomery, a sophomore at SMU, said she began twirling when she was 8 after her mother, a former twirler, started teaching her moves.

"She did it in high school and college, and it kind of rubbed off on me," the 19-year-old said.

The San Antonio native – currently ranked third in the world for baton twirling – received a partial scholarship to SMU for her twirling prowess. In the last year alone, she's captured numerous titles and awards, including a bronze medal at the world baton twirling championships in France.

Ms. Montgomery can twirl up to four batons at a time, but she sticks to three for football games.

"Twirling really does make me unique," she said. "It's given me the personality I have now. It's helped me develop in the young lady I am."

Carly, a Highland Park freshman who started twirling at age 9, is ranked in the top five nationally in her age group. She is four years younger than Ms. Montgomery, but their paths have crisscrossed for years through the National Baton Twirling Association.

And though Carly has years of competition ahead, Ms. Montgomery said hers are numbered.

"Twirling in college is definitely the end, but it's a positive end," she said. "I love football games, when little kids come and ask for my autograph. I like the attention."