Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Introduction


Hi, my name is Jenny! I graduated from Bishop Montgomery High School in 2006. I was fortunate enough to be a part of a Short Flags team from my sophomore to my senior year.

Both of my sisters, Cheryl ('89) and Amy ('93), were a part of Narbonne's Small Flag team back in the late 80s and early 90s. During Cheryl's year, Narbonne went on to compete internationally in the country of Japan.

With my sisters' inspiration, I've had a pretty good experience of the pep flag world. For my Sophomore year in 2003-2004, I started on the Junior Varsity team as the only new member to be performing for camp. I was considered the "weak link" and didn't take to the sport quickly. I was an awkward looking girl performing with glasses and braces. This year proved to be an introductory period into Pep flags.

The following year, I was chosen to be a part of the 2004-2005 Varsity team. After the announcement, Rachael (alumni) told me that I needed to improve greatly. I don't think she thought I was good enough to be there. This year, we earned the highest score in preliminaries for USA Nationals, and lost 1st place in the finals by only one point (2nd by .5 points); with these scores, I believe the rankings were accurate.

My final year, 2005-2006, I was chosen by the coaches as co-captain for the season. This was the first year we had a male compete (David), and also the last year we had the JV team. This final season wore on with many problems, most self-inflicted by my naive high-school self, but we were able to get through it. Towards the end of the year I was the only senior in my team. We were unable to qualify our two flag in finals but placed 3rd in our one flag for USA Nationals.

In the Summer of 2007, I became part of the Sharp International Sharp Extreme Camp Staff. Because of my experiences of camp, and how memorable they were to me, I believe it was good decision because it kept me so close to the team that has made such an impact on my life. I taught the intermediate / Advanced Pep Flag class in place of Loren who was unable to make it last minute (although I don't think I compare).


Note: Unfortunately, I'm no longer involved with any updates added to this website. Any future postings are the work of the current short flag / pep flag / small flag / flaggies community.


11 comments:

Anonymous said...

maybe you should try out for USA so you can keep twirling and spread the love. =)

Jen said...

To be honest, I was kind of intimidated by the staff and I don't know if I could make such a commitment right now (although I did inquire about it a few months ago).

Anonymous said...

Big KUDOS goes out to the webmaster/owner of this blog. I hail from Long Beach Poly (ol' school from the Nineties), and was part of the Spirit Leader Squad that witnessed the resurrection of the separate pep flag team from its demise in the late Eighties.

I must commend your talent in designing such a graphic-filled and engaging website dedicated to short flags. In addition, I thoroughly enjoy how you display your passion in furthering the exposure of this sport by being objective and including all local Southern Californian teams.

The special touches like the customized artwork various teams can include on their school website, MySpace, and other sites, the research on team placements, and more are just awesome.

Please NEVER feel that your labor of love is taken for granted. Continue to bless others with the gifts and talents you yourself have been blessed with.

I look forward to seeing and enjoying more NEW details and features on this site.

Go Beach!!! Long Beach Poly, that is!

Jen said...

Oh thank you so much for your support. Being part of a team and having almost no one know what you love, I just wanted to educate people with this ultimately visual sport.

I've been making such graphics for my own team until now, and I just wanted to share my talents with the other teams.

I just wanted to bring together all the members of the pep flag community and to increase the knowledge about it.

Thanks again for all your support.

And by the way, I go to CSULB so GO BEACH!

cardinalfan said...

Hi, I went to Whittier HS in the late nineties, and at the time, we had an amazing short flags team. They mainly performed for exhibition, having qualified for Nationals only once my entire 4 years at Whittier. Anyway, the team discontinued at the start of the new millenium (for reasons unknown to me). I honestly thought short flags were on a slow death since all other high schools in the Whittier area had disbanded their short flags programs long before. It brings me great joy that something this physically and visually strong still has plenty of support in the southland. I applaud the great efforts of the blog moderator for putting together this website. And to all the current teams out there, keep putting your hearts into what you do. You are all amazing.

Joan Solitario said...

I was never in the high school short flag teams, but I was part of the Carnegie Junior High school Flaggies 1992-1993 :-D. It is definitely an awesome skill to learn. Thanks for creating this site. :-D

Clara said...

Hi Jen,
I go to Monte Vista High School (in the "other schools" section of your site) and pep flags is one of the many teams for the school. I'm not on the 08-09 team, but im trying out to be in the 09-10. Could you please make tutorial videos? they would help a ton!

Also, i would like to add that you do a fabulous job with this site! its definitely helpful for the pep flag fanatic! Thank you so much!

Anonymous said...

Hey Jen, i'm from grace yokley dance/drill. do you happen to have photos from west covina on 1/31/09

allison said...

hi,
my name is allison and im a junior at palos verdes high school.
alot of my friends are on the bmhs flaggies team. at pvhs we have a color guard and about 5 cheer teams. i've always wanted a short flags team at my school, but when i asked, the coach didnt know how to use the short flags. i really wanna make a team at my school before i graduate. any suggestions?

allison

Anonymous said...

Hi There, I went to Hoover in the late 90's and am really excited to see how far the program has come since I graduated.

I recently broke out my flags for novelty's sake and was doing some twirling. I enjoyed it so much I wanted to see what else was out there. I found a website called homeofpoi.com. It's all about the performance art of twirling called Poi. Fire twirling, batons, flags, etc. I think anyone who has enjoyed twirling flags and is looking to expand their performance skills would love this website. All kinds of really cool products. Even if there isn't a place for it in competition yet, how awesome would it be if you could incorporate some of the LED lit poi balls into a flag routine for a pep-rally? Anyhow, just wanted to share that with you all since I think you're the only people that would appreciate it. XOXO!

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