MORGANTOWN — On autumn evenings at the end of the week before COVID clamped down, Pony Lewis Field at Morgantown High School was a gridiron destination.
Bleacher seats, full.
Anticipation so electric, the air crackled.
Or so it seemed.
If you thought the school’s championship football team got the crowd going (it always did) … well, wait until you heard the response afforded the equally renowned Red and Blue Marching Band.
The drumline, pounding the pulse-rhythm of high school.
The brass instruments, glinting under the Friday night lights.
The peal of the music put forth by a talented, tightly rehearsed assemblage.
The precise choreography of the Mohiganettes and Majorettes – the M&Ms.
And, in the center of it all: The Head Majorette, dressed in gold, and with a distinct headdress befitting the school’s nod to the region’s indigenous history.
This past season that honor went to Mirannda Wotring, a band kid from way back.
Mirannda, you see, has halftime in her DNA.
Family business
Her mom, Debbie Wotring, is an MHS graduate and M&M veteran.
So was Debbie’s maternal grandmother, the late Shirley Merrill Wade.
So were Mirannda’s sisters, Savannah and Chantelle.
And her aunt, Pam Kessler.
Her paternal grandfather, the late Marvin Wotring, was a famed blacksmith and gunsmith, who, for 40 years, made the long rifle toted by WVU’s iconic Mountaineer mascot at games and other special events.
He did this by hand, from 1976 until his death in 2018 — and now Gene Wotring, his son and Mirannda’s dad, is doing the same.
That saxophone Mirannda initially played in the band — because you don’t just get to be on the M&M line — has history and tradition in its keys, as well.
It was the same one Debbie played.
And the same one bestowed to her by Shirley, Class of 1961, who made music from it during her Mohigan journey.
“It’s pretty beat-up,” Mirannda said jokingly, of the well-used instrument.
“It’s falling apart, but tradition is tradition.”
She could have just as easily been talking about what it’s like being a high school senior in a pandemic year.
Not awkward – nope
That’s because COVID doesn’t care about school traditions. Nope, not one bit.
Like everyone else in her class, Mirannda, who just turned 18, has gotten pretty adept at coexisting with the coronavirus.
Remote learning was never an issue, since she’s pretty disciplined and self-directed, she said.
The face masks, social distancing and handwashing became second nature to the student with an already keen eye to those particulars, as she’s off to Liberty University this fall to begin her study of nursing.
Heck, she even got used to the idea of a prom, with no dancing. MHS held such an event Saturday night in Wharf District — and she went.
“You do what you can do,” the senior said.
Debbie Wotring is proud of her daughter, she said, but she’s equally proud of every other kid who earned a spot in a band that has received national accolades over its history.
“All of them,” she said.
“They never stopped working. They never gave up.”
Even when they felt, well … goofy.
The one vying for Head Majorette, that is.
Such an audition normally would have happened on the artificial turf of Pony Lewis Field, with real band members providing the music, so Mirannda could hit her marks with the whistle and everything else that goes into the field show.
Then, it would have been intuitive.
Then, she wouldn’t have had to think and second-guess herself.
And burst out laughing, as she did from time to time, during the proceedings.
Because of COVID-19 considerations, Mirannda’s tryout was in the front yard, to an audio track, with Debbie serving as cellphone videographer.
“Here I am, dancing my heart out for my mom,” Mirannda said, a little ruefully.
“No-o-o, that wasn’t awkward at all.”
“If a car went by,” Debbie said, “you could forget it.”
Mohigan moments
Senior year, and being Head Majorette, has been mostly unforgettable, Mirannda allowed.
During the summer, there was some controversy over the use of Morgantown High’s Native American-themed “Mohigan” adornments, used in the school’s logos and marketing.
Many think such usage is demeaning.
Just as many, though — Debbie and Mirannda, included — say it’s honoring the region’s indigenous lineage.
For Mirannda, it’s the band and the high school.
It’s her grandmother, and her mom, and her sisters and her aunt, all with the same experience now.
In this abbreviated COVID-football season, she and her bandmates in the Red and Blue got to perform a quartet of shows for halftime.
Four turns under the lights.
With Mirannda at the front of student-musicians who got their chops back pretty quickly, even with the limited, distanced rehearsals.
Eyes right, eyes left, a sequence of blats on the whistle: The Head Majorette at work.
“It’s always about the band,” she said.
“I’ve never seen this as being about me. I want the band to do well.”
Blessings of the Red and Blue
And while those seats at Pony Lewis weren’t full, you might not have known it.
Not from the applause and enthusiasm generated by that select audience of parents and other caregivers.
Mirannda called that a blessing.
Senior-year vignettes that COVID-19 can never overshadow, she said.
After all, for that kid with halftime in her DNA, halftime at Pony Lewis Field is still a marquee event — no matter the delivery system or the news of the day.
“We were the band,” she said.
“We were out there together. That was special.”
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