IRMO, S.C. — If you're planning to watch the Rose Bowl this weekend, you might see a familiar face.
A Midlands teen is getting ready to fly to California to perform alongside the University of Alabama Million Dollar Band Crimsonettes.
August Horton has been twirling since she was five years old. Now 13 years later, she's getting ready for the biggest performance of her life so far.
Together with her 29 other teammates, Horton is preparing to twirl at the Rose Bowl Parade and the game on Jan 1.
“I'm definitely a little bit nervous. The parade route is 5.5 miles long and over 700,000 people come to see it in person. So it will definitely be nerve-wracking on multiple ends of the spectrum, and I'm gonna have to be in my best shape and also perform the whole time for all those people so it'll be very exciting but I'm nervous a little bit,” Horton smiles. “This is definitely the biggest milestone for me. I have twirled in local parades like the Irmo Okra Strut, but nothing of this capacity at all. So it'll be all new.”
It’s a new milestone, but Horton has experience twirling on the sidelines and during pre-game and half time performances. A 2023 graduate of Dutch Fork High School, Horton says she was the first feature twirler in Lexington-Richland School District 5 in 35 years.
“I was the first to twirl since 1982 in the district and the first twirler at Dutch Fork High School because it started in the 90s. So it was really cool being able to kind of bring twirling back to the community. And we had to get permission with the school board to be able to twirl and then figuring out twirling on the sidelines and with the band,” Horton remembers. “It was just a really cool process.”
When she's not spending time practicing, Horton says she's busy working toward a major in aerospace engineering, hoping to eventually work on aircrafts at Boeing here in South Carolina.
Horton will leave on Dec. 29 and head to Disneyland for the performance.
“It'll be such a cool experience, I think, to be able to twirl in one of the biggest parades in the world,” Horton shares. “We've done a lot of practice this whole season. We do practice five days a week and on game days, so six days if we have a game that week at home, and so we do practice from three o'clock to 5:30 every single day. And so that's a lot of practice. I feel pretty prepared because I know our routines and I know that I've had a lot of preparation.”
When it comes to the hardest part about her journey so far, Horton says choosing a school was difficult. Horton says she knew she wanted to find a college she could twirl at, but also wanted to find an engineering program as she pursues her goal to major in aerospace engineering.
Ultimately, Horton says “Alabama ended up being a really great option on all fronts.”
“Making the team and finding my home at Alabama, that's definitely been the most rewarding part of twirling in all these years” Horton explains about the Crimsonettes, a team she says consists largely of in-state students. “Being somebody who's out of the state, I have such a great support system. A lot of people from South Carolina have come to see me at games and stuff like that. So it means a lot that I have such a great support system and I know everyone is cheering me on from home. I get a lot of support.”