Photo by Erin Nelson.
The Star Spangled Girls and Patriot marching band perform during halftime of a game against Vestavia Hills at Waldrop Stadium in August 2021.
After Homewood Middle School recently created a dance team program at the school, there became a concern of students not being able to continue their growth as incoming freshmen at Homewood High School, said Jennifer Ayers, director of the Homewood High Dance Department.
Now, Homewood High School has its first junior varsity dance team, called the Starlets, which will allow incoming freshmen from the middle school dance team a chance to continue to develop as dancers once at the high school.
“There was some change of administration starting back at the middle school,” Ayers said. “In the past, there has never been a middle school dance team. The new administration OK’d a dance team and auditions to occur at the middle school level. What they kind of pushed on us at the high school level was to do something for those incoming freshmen girls.”
Ayers said this was an effort to avoid the middle school dance team members losing their skills and progress as well as keep those dancers from joining other school programs such as cheerleading because they weren’t able to be on the Star Spangled Girls dance team as a freshman. Students can also join the Starlets as a sophomore, junior or senior, she said.
Ayers was a Star Spangled Girl herself when she went to Homewood High School, she said. She graduated in 1991 and went on to pursue a degree in choral music but kept dancing in college.
“I graduated with a degree in choral music, but I still very much enjoyed dancing.” Ayers said. “The dance teacher at the time recruited me and asked me to take her spot as the dance teacher at the high school in 1997.”
Ayers took classes at Samford University and Birmingham Southern College to become qualified to teach dance at the school.
This will be her 25th year teaching dance at Homewood High.
“Dance has meant very much to me,” she said. “It has been a huge part of my life, and I’ve pretty much danced through all of it. The Star Spangled Girls taught me a lot about self-confidence, determination, perseverance and that hard work always pays off. I have tried to give that to my students during my last 25 years of teaching.”
She said that creating a JV dance team during her 25th year of teaching is “ironic.”
“The cards fell in the right order, and we had a great teacher at the middle school that wanted to develop that middle school dance team,” Ayers said. “She felt like she had a good opportunity to create something, and then we felt like we needed to just support her. Ultimately, it’ll end up supporting and being super beneficial for the dance program, including the Star Spangled Girls.”
For more information, contact Jennifer Ayers at jayers@homewood.k12.al.us.
