Hello! It’s very nice to meet you! The mission of The Vintage Twirler is to support and celebrate the sport of baton twirling through the preservation of stories and pictures.
Thank you for your support of this education and advocacy project.
Please consider joining 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.
We invite you to share your stories and pictures with us. No story is too small, no photo too grainy. This site has space for it all. Send your stories, pictures and/or videos to info@vintage-baton-twirler.org or contacts us on our Facebook page, The Vintage Baton Twirler.
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.
If you have a suggestion for a new collection, please email us at info@vintage-baton-twirler.org.
Oral Histories
Oral history is the collection and study of historical information using sound recordings of interviews with people having personal knowledge of past events. If you would like to share your history of baton twirling, please contact us at info@vintage-baton-twirler.org.
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.
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
Xernona and Xenobia of Muskgoee: From Oklahoma Majorettes to Civil Rights History
Xernona and Xenobia Brewster, Late 1940s | Muskogee, Oklahoma Long before one of them became a nationally honored civil rights icon with a bronze statue in downtown Atlanta, identical twins Xernona and Xenobia Brewster were known in Oklahoma as “The Brewster Twins,” a...
Jim “JC” Baskett (1937-2019)
James “J.C.” Baskett became one of the most recognizable figures in Tennessee baton twirling through his work as a collegiate performer, instructor, and co-founder of the Tennessee Twirling Institute, a program that helped shape competitive baton twirling across the...
A Former Twirler’s Mother’s Day Post
"When I was 10 years old I was a baton twirler. My mom made all of my costumes and painstakingly sewed sequins onto pleats, gauntlets, stars and even made a blue sequin hat out of a form over the top of an empty coffee can! I’ve kept a few of those items of clothing...
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.
Majorette Memories
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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