Dunmore grad, former Miss Buck, earns spot on Penn State's Touch of Blue Majorettes squad
Published: June 23, 2009
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special to the times-tribune Brittany Semion, a 2006 graduate of Dunmore High School, will be on the field during home Penn State football pregame and halftime festivities as a twirler for the Touch of Blue Majorettes squad.;special to the times-tribune Brittany Semion, a 2006 graduate of Dunmore High School, will be on the field during home Penn State football pregame and halftime festivities as a twirler for the Touch of Blue Majorettes squad.
As far as Brittany Semion is concerned, being among the throngs of fans at a Penn State Nittany Lion football game is among the great pleasures of life as an undergraduate at the university's State College campus.
"The crowd is great and the student section is even better," said the 2006 Dunmore High School graduate, now 21 and a junior pre-med major at The Pennsylvania State University.
A few months from now, Ms. Semion will be experiencing the games from a completely different vantage point - the field.
Ms. Semion recently learned she earned a spot on Penn State's Touch of Blue Majorettes, a select group of twirlers who perform with the PSU Blue Band during the pregame and halftime festivities at home football games.
Try out
Ms. Semion competed against 16 other students to receive a spot on the 10-member squad, according to Touch of Blue coach/choreographer Heather Bean.
"We congratulate Brittany on a job well done," Ms. Bean wrote in an e-mail.
A former Miss Buck at Dunmore High School, Ms. Semion tried out for the squad during her freshman year but didn't make it. To prepare herself for this year's tryouts, which were held in April, she started practicing in October.
"Tryouts were very intense and there were so many girls who worked for that spot as much as I did, I really did not know how it would turn out," wrote Ms. Semion, currently studying abroad at Palazzo Rucellai in Florence, Italy, in an e-mail. "Once I found out I made it, I honestly could not believe it. I was so unbelievably excited it felt like a dream."
Ms. Semion will be required to head back to school a week early to attend Touch of Blue's daily 10-hour sessions leading up to Penn State's Sept. 5 home opener against the University of Akron. During the fall semester, the squad practices three hours a day, six times a week, and are required to learn three new routines for each of the team's eight home games, she said.
Should the Nittany Lions go to a bowl game, Ms. Semion and the rest of the squad will have the opportunity to travel with them. Once the season ends, they'll start training for the National Collegiate Twirling Championships, which Touch of Blue has won six times.
Ms. Semion said she's excited yet also "very nervous" about twirling in front of more than 100,000 screaming fans every Saturday.
Can't wait
"Girls who are currently on the squad describe the experience as incredible," said Ms. Semion, who plans to attend optometry school after college. "They said the first time they ran out of that tunnel for pregame it was like an out-of-body experience."
"Being on the field will probably make me love the games even more."
A 2002 World Twirling Association National Championship winner, Ms. Semion has been twirling since she was a 3-year-old member of Sherry's Royalettes, the local team run by her mom, Sherry Nicolais.
"She really has taught me everything I know and has always helped me in anyway she could, learning new tricks and making sure I stay on top of my training schedule," Ms. Semion said of her mother.
"We're thrilled for her," Ms. Nicolais said. "I don't know who was more excited, me or her.
"This is the culmination of it all. It's really overwhelming."
Contact the writer: jmcauliffe@timesshamrock.com
8 posted comments
Shouldn't it be Miss Doe?