The Vintage Twirler preserves and shares the history, culture, traditions, and legacy of baton twirling and majorette performance through education, storytelling, archival preservation, and advocacy.
Please join the Baton Twirling Preservation Society.
The Vintage Twirler preserves and shares the history, culture, traditions, and legacy of baton twirling and majorette performance through education, storytelling, archival preservation, and advocacy.
Join the Baton Twirling Preservation Society.
Share Your Stories and Pictures
Support and celebrate the rich history and heritage of baton twirling through the collection, preservation and online display of historic materials. Help add to the historical record of a sport grossly underreported by mainstream media.
Unfortunately, lost in the mists of time are stories and pictures. Without ever being interviewed, baton twirling heroes and legends pass away. Lost forever are the viewpoints, perspectives and even eyewitness accounts that shape the historical record. As such, the documented history of twirling becomes limited or inaccessible and priceless photos and ephemera are lost, stolen, trashed and/or destroyed, etc.
See Collections
We are building an archive of baton twirling images and stories from the 20th Century. ollections featured on this site are only partially complete. Those with red stars have content.
Posts Memorials and Tributes
Memorials are for the dearly departed. Tributes honor the living. We invite you to publish a free memorial or tribute honoring someone who has impacted your journey in the sport of twirling.
Thank you for allowing the legacies of those who have gone before us live online and inspire others to give selflessly to this sport.
Thank You
Thank you for helping preserve the history of baton twirling. We are preserving photographs to understand what our lives have meant and sharing your stories to gain a deeper understanding of experiences.
We invite you to share your stories and pictures with us. No story is too small, no photo too grainy.
Top Photo: Bettye Lou Sorrells (1936-2022) leads the Gilmer Buckeye Band down Buffalo Street, Gilmer, Texas, 1953. Photo Credit: Growing Up Gilmer
Most Recent Posts
Twirlers Help Publicize Lions Club Broom Sale (1951)
Today's Vintage Baton Twirling Photo is of a Glendale Lions Club broom sale promotion, 1951. Joann Cave and Pollyann Basford, baton twirlers wearing tap shoes, pose with brooms to help publicize an upcoming Glendale Lions Club fundraiser. Lions Clubs across the...
Dottie Dunston School of Dance and Baton
Dottie Dunston: A Jersey Shore Original Dorothy "Dottie" Dunston was one of the most influential baton twirling instructors on the Jersey Shore during the Golden Age of baton twirling. A performer, teacher, judge, pageant director, and school owner, Dunston spent...
James Percy (J.P) “Pee Wee” Crumpler (1927-1991)
The_Camden News, April 26, 1974Born in 1927, James Percy "J.P. (Pee Wee)" Crumpler began twirling in 1937 and quickly became one of the most remarkable young drum majors in the South. At just 12 years of age, he was leading the Camden High School Panther Band under...
Vintage Ephemera
Baton twirling ephemera refers to things like programs, posters, patches, stickers, magazines, newsletters, and other things typically written or printed that were used for a specific period of time.
Submit History
We welcome high-quality scans of your vintage baton twirling ephemera. You can also receive items through the mail. We’ll digitally preserve your memories in high-quality scans. Thank you so much for supporting this project.
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