Hello! It’s very nice to meet you! The mission of the Vintage Baton 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.
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. Eventually, we want to publish oral histories, hence adding 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. Consequently, 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. Moreover, priceless photos and ephemera are lost, stolen, trashed and/or destroyed, etc.
Therefore, 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. If it’s important to you, it’s important to us. So, please contact us. Send your stories, pictures and/or videos to info@vintage-baton-twirler.org or contacts us on our Facebook page, The Vintage Baton Twirler. Also, we can also receive items by mail. If you have items to sell, we have funds available to purchase collections, etc.
See Collections
We are building an archive of baton twirling images and stories from the 20th Century. We have a long way to go. On the other hand, we’ve already made great strides. Nevertheless, the collections featured on this site are only partially complete. Those with red stars have content.
Currently, collections include seven decades; Black baton twirlers; male twirlers; memorabilia and ephemera. Soon, we will begin publishing sports heroes and legends, pageant twirlers and more. Ultimately, we have so many special things planned. Truly, you don’t want to miss a single post so please subscribe.
If you have a suggestion for a new collection, please email us at info@vintage-baton-twirler.org.
Posts Memorials and Tributes
Finally, we have created a section to honor the people who have meant so much to you. Memorials are given to remember someone who is dearly departed. Conversely, tributes honor the living.
Accordingingly, we invite you to publish a free memorial or tribute honoring someone who has impacted your journey in the sport of baton twirling. For example, your mom, dad or grandparent. Also, former coaches, students, teammates, teachers or friends, etc. Memorials and tributes are featured in dedicated posts and may include letters, pictures and/or videos, etc.
Thank you for allowing the legacies of those who have gone before us live online and inspire others to give selflessly to this sport.
Read Our Blog
Click here to review all the posts published on this site to date.
Top Photo: Bettye Lou Sorrells (1936-2022) leads the Gilmer Buckeye Band down Buffalo Street, Gilmer, Texas, 1953. Photo Credit: Growing Up Gilmer
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 let us know. We are available to conduct interviews every Friday by phone. In addition, we can communicate by email, if you prefer. Interviews will be published on this website. Once a substantial number of interviews have been conducted, they will be presented in a podcast-type format; however, we do not currently have plans to launch a podcast. Also, nothing will be published without the interviewee’s written consent.
Most Recent Posts
Tulsa Christmas Parade and a Troupe of 35 Sapulpa Baton Twirlers (1949)
A long time ago, a troupe of 35 baton twirlers from Sapulpa, Oklahoma, marched in the Tulsa Christmas parade. A popular local photographer, Howard Hopkins, took their picture and it ended up on a postcard. Click here to see a watermark image of the University of Tulsa...
Tarboro Majorettes at Christmastime
Milton Steele Brown (1884-1967) moved to Edgecombe County, North Carolina in 1912, to build a Coca-Cola bottling plant. An avid photographer, he photographed many subjects throughout the county between 1912 and the late 1950s. Many of his pictures feature Tarboro...
Tudy Smith
This post is a work in progress and will be continually updated as research is completed. In 2017, Tudy Smith, a former majorette and beloved baton twirling coach, was celebrated by 70 former students during a tribute held in her honor. The Herald Tribune covered the...
Thank you
Thank you for helping preserve the history of baton twirling. You may not think your story is important but absolutely, it is. As previously stated, we are preserving photographs to understand what our lives have meant and sharing your stories to gain a deeper understanding of experiences.
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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Rare Merchandise
Once or twice a year we will offer a commemorative item or rare keepsake for sale. For example, a sticker, patch, pin or T-shirt, etc. Without a doubt, you won’t want to miss out on this! All proceeds will help offset the cost of this project, in particulary, the cost of web hosting and acquisition of rare and/or copyrighted materials.
We will offer our first piece of merchandise before summer. Please sign up for updates below so you don’t miss our annoucement. Thank you so much for your interest in this project.