Allison Hiss

Lassiter Colorguard, Class of 2007 I remember this one time...we were training for the Rose Bowl Parade with the Lassiter Band, and we had been marching around the track in circles for probably five miles doing the same parade work over and over again. I couldn't seem to keep it straight in my brain because my mind was going numb from the repetition. Also, I'm

pretty sure I was in that sophomore-year slump where I thought it would be cool just to be chill and not care so much about everything. Deep down, though, I wanted to be a rock star at colorguard. Deep down, I wanted to be a leader among my peers, and you knew that about me.

So when I messed up the work for the millionth time, you came over yelled, "Allison, come on! You're supposed to be the smart one!" Now, that may seem to some people like a story about you being too mean or too tough, but it is NOT. It's a story about a time when you knew my potential, and you saw me slacking off. In some magical way, you figured out how to tell me how much I was letting down the team AND give me the biggest compliment ever. Hearing my biggest mentor say "I expect you to be THE smart one...the one everyone counts to know what's going on" made me want to work so much harder than I did before. It was so motivating, and I have never forgotten that moment. You knew how to be tough on us and still tell us how amazing we were in the same breath.

You knew how to be tough, but you knew when it was time to cut loose, too. One morning before a big regional winterguard competition, I dropped my own flag on my face during a turnaround toss, and I knocked out half of my front tooth. My mom rushed me to the paramedics who said nothing could be done, and I would be stuck looking like a Jack-o-lantern for the rest of the day. When I got back to rehearsal, you had given every girl in the guard a piece of Dentyne Ice, and everyone had built themselves a crooked smile out of gum just to make me laugh. You had a big chunk of gum on your front tooth, and you told me in this horrible redneck accent, "Yer gonna nail that turnaround toss next time, ain't ya?!" I smiled the biggest, ugliest, toothless smile in both performances that day because you found the most hilarious way to remind me that it was all just part of the process. And we won. Michelle, you changed so many lives through your coaching and teaching. You may have thought you were teaching drop spins and peggy. tosses, but it turns out, you were doing so much more. We will miss you so much, but you will live on through the profound impact you made on each of our lives.