By: Grace Hicks
Student at Dickinson High School
The Dickinson Midgettes doesn't have much of a history behind it. A few championship titles and years, almost decades of not placing. But recently we have taken 2nd place consecutively for 2 years.
The training for it wasn't easy. We started in the summer with basics and choreography. At first the routines were extremely difficult to complete. We worked in the routines for hours and months up until the start of competitions. 3 weeks before century, I stepped on a broken jar and was in a boot for 2 weeks. I returned for the week before Century. Then during the week, a girl dislocated her shoulder and was out of the comp. We started adjusting and it was difficult, but it didn't end here.
During the next comp, we hadn't placed at all and went to train harder than we had before. The work paid off but unfortunately we had another injury during the first routine of the day, hip hop and had to redo the second routine, kick. We took 3rd place in kick and from here everything took off.
The next competition at Legacy, during the 1st routine run through before we went on. We had another injury and 20 minutes before going on, we turned the dances into a dance for 3 people. We then took 3rd place again and this is when we began to dance as the smallest group in kick. At Mandan, we took 3rd in kick and I took 3rd in the solo division.
In preparation for state, we worked our butt's off and headed our way. During the prelims of kick, we made a few mistakes that we thought would end our journey to finals. We sat for hours and were very glad to hear that we finalized. During finals, we performed so well to make our coach cry and were very excited about how we did. They called us up for the best award ever, "Impact Award", where they chose 1 routine out of almost 400 who they thought made an impact. We were called for second place and what would be a record breaking thing for our team.
For 16 years, the Midgettes didn't finalize in kick and we would be the first to break it and take 2nd against routines that had almost 12 people. I was so happy to be on the team and can't wait for next year.