By By SHERRY DIGMON
Advance Staff Writer
Always impressive in presentation, the Northview High School NJROTC Color Guard took their duty to a new level Friday night. They were on horseback for the opening ceremonies of the NHS football game.
It was a first for this high school and was likely the first time anyone in the stadium had seen a mounted color guard.
Lt. Col. Pete Peters, NJROTC instructor at NHS, said he had no knowledge of or experience with a mounted color guard, but when some of his students approached him about forming one, he told them to do their legwork and brief him.
Friday night, Monica Kidd, Johnny Miller, Amanda Bolen and Natalie Kidd presented two sabers, the national ensign and Navy colors.
When the students came to him, Col. Peters' first step was to get in touch with the school system's risk management department. That turned out to be an important phone call.
Joe Bernard, who works in risk management, had met n by accident n a Marine staff sergeant who rode in the last Marine mounted color guard. Col. Peters said Friday afternoon that Staff Sgt. Hutchinson would be on the field that night, dressed in his blues, making sure everything went all right.
Now that he had someone with some expertise, Col. Peters felt a little better, but he was still clueless about the details n for instance, about the horses themselves.
When NHS assistant principal Pam Mathis asked him about the horses, he found out that she's a horse enthusiast.
That may have been prophetic since the colonel is the "official" manure shoveler.