Ella Bagwell, captain of Highlighters, teaches a dance routine to 60 young girls with the help of drill team members on Monday. 

With big smiles and excitement, members of the Chapel Hill High School Highlighters Drill Team lined up to welcome approximately 60 girls for their yearly dance clinic.

Participants who signed up for the clinic were eager to learn a dance routine taught by the Highlighters that will be performed at the Oct. 14 football game against the Lindale Eagles.

According to Highlighters Dance Director Katie Hewitt, the yearly clinic is open to local young girls in grades first to fifth who are not required to be from Chapel Hill ISD. The clinic had a fee of $40 for the first child in the family and $25 for additional siblings who wanted to join.

Hewitt has been witnessing the clinic for more than a decade and said the girls who attend the clinics often idolize the drill team members and have a passion for dance, which eventually leads them to becoming a Highlighter in the future.

“It’s pretty neat to see them develop over the years,” she said.

With the 23 Highlighters serving as a positive example for the girls, Hewitt sees the clinic as a way to give back.

“For the Highlighters, it’s great because they’re being role models for those younger girls. They all remember when they were that age and how much they looked up to the girls in the sparkly uniforms, and they would watch them at halftime and just dreamed of being there one day. So it’s an opportunity to give back to an organization that trained them throughout the years,” she said.

Hewitt said the young girls take away many positive things from the experience and are always looking forward to the big performance with the drill team.

“It’s a really big deal for them to be on the field on Friday nights because it’s a huge crowd and just being under those stadium lights, it’s a very special and exciting end for them,” she said.

Another benefit of the clinic is that the participants are being trained by an award-winning team, said Hewitt.

“These girls (Highlighters) are very trained and disciplined … We have a training of excellence that we’ve established throughout the years, so it’s good to keep that tradition going,” Hewitt said.

This year was Wise Elementary third-grader Skyoa Davidson’s second time participating in the dance clinic. Skyoa, 8, has been dancing for five years.

“My dad signed me back in because I really love dancing and I really love being with all my friends,” she said.

Ella Walton, Highlighter dancer, has also been participating in the clinic, and said she looks forward to training the young girls for the second time.

“It’s actually very exciting, and it is nerve wracking at the same time, but it’s very exciting to be able to interact with the little kids and being able to teach them something we do every day,” she said.

Ella also hopes to teach them that dance is more than routines and can also be a form of self-expression.

“I hope they take away ways to have fun through dance and that it’s not all about strictness and discipline, it’s also about creativity and how they express themselves,” she said.