Baton beauty

Kelli Montgomery flips a strand of bangs out of her face. As her red-and-blue sequined outfit sparkles, she nonchalantly spins her metal baton between her fingers.

“I guess it’s just luck that I’m here at SMU,” she says. The Mustang Band and SMU Spirit Squads are the ones that should feel lucky though. Montgomery, a first-year pre-communications major is the top twirler in the nation, not to mention ranked third in the entire world after competitions this past summer in Marseille, France.

“Twirlers, a traditional position in the Mustang Band, are the only visual aspect of our performance, seeing that we have no color guard,” said Mustang Band Director David Kehler.

Kehler has been interested in Montgomery joining the band since he received a tape of her twirling during her sophomore year in high school.

Kehler offered her the same partial scholarship that the band receives. He was especially excited to have her join after the band was without a twirler for the first time in Mustang history.

“We have room for up to three [twirlers],” Kehler said. “But they would definitely have to be at Kelli’s level.”

Montgomery, a San Antonio native, has been competing twirling batons since she was 8 years old.

Perhaps twirling is in her genes. Her mother was a twirling majorette in high school and is currently a twirling teacher.

But while Montgomery and her mother do confer about twirling, her mother has never been her coach.

“I just wanted to have a mother/daughter relationship with my mom, not just have her as a coach.” Instead Montgomery has a personal twirling coach.

Twirling isn’t just something she does because her mother did it. Montgomery does it because of how it makes her feel.

“Twirling is not something everybody does. It makes me feel unique, like there’s something special about me,” Montgomery said.

The newest member of SMU Spirit will have to face even bigger crowds in college.

“Even when I get nervous on the field, I go through with it anyway, and that’s what’s exciting.”

Learning the SMU fight songs was her first challenge when she got to SMU. Montgomery arrived at school early to participate in band “two-a-days.”

While the band practiced on the field, Montgomery was in Moody Coliseum working with her coach on choreography for songs like “Pony Battle Cry.” Soon she was out on the field with the band.

Montgomery is sure that her experience at SMU will help her in other endeavors.

“A lot of people told me to go to UT, but I didn’t want to. I like the smaller atmosphere here at SMU and the connections locally in Dallas are great,” she said.

Montgomery’s first SMU game experience will come on the road this Saturday when Mustang football travels to Lubbock to face Texas Tech.