By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
Color Guard is her fame, journalism her game at Michigan State University for 2004 Union High graduate Katie Brosnan, the only Dowagiac member of the green tide which washed over town Friday afternoon.
Katie was influenced to major in journalism by her DUHS Color Guard instructor Heather Comfort, who produced at NewsCenter 16, the NBC affiliate in South Bend, Ind.
Returning to her hometown with a band of a caliber which turned high school musicians green with envy means a lot of hard work.
Friday night the Spartans performed at Edwardsburg.
In 2006 the Fighting Irish travel to East Lansing, but in 2007 MSU will perform on Chris Taylor-Alumni Field. "I'll be a senior by then," Katie said, "and hopefully, I'll have a leadership position. It's a really good band and it's a lot of fun. I honestly don't know half the people" in the 350-person ranks. "Growing up in Dowagiac, you know everyone. I walked off the bus and I've got three people already like, 'Hey, Katie, how you doing?' In Lansing, I watch practice and think, 'I don't remember seeing her before.' "
Even the arrival of the MSU entourage was a sight to behold before the first note from a band which covered Dowagiac's gridiron from the 10-yard-line to 10-yard line.
Big 10 flags flapped on the drizzly day as all the silver tubas, trumpets and trombones snapped in unison.
It looked like the Rolling Stones had gotten lost and stopped to ask for directions with a semi and six buses clogging Solomon Street between the field and Patrick Hamilton Middle School.
In high school Katie was a hostess at Zeke's, worked at Sav-a-Lot one summer, worked at Sister Lakes at a car wash and a dollar store and was a lifeguard at Silver Beach.
Not only did Katie not have any problem finding a host family in Dowagiac, but her mom, Margie "is hosting all of us. There are 32 of us in the Color Guard. We have my house and my cousin has a lake house on the same road. There's one guy and our instructor, Orlando," and the rest are women. "It's going to be an interesting night," she laughed. "It would be one thing if we didn't get along, but everybody gets along."
The Spartans practiced their abbreviated five-minute pregame and halftime shows before putting on a clinic for area musicians.
The MSU band exhibited their signature entrance.
MSU's "run-on" style is to a kick-step cadence invented in 1950.