Twirl power!
- 29 minutes ago
- 5 min read
Arlington woman, 89, started twirling in 1952; still twirls flaming baton every winter
By Jillian Kellerman
Marge Kloeckl of Arlington was not very athletic in high school, but she loved music. She never gave in to piano lessons, and she said no when her father tried to convince her to play the concertina, but it didn’t take much convincing for her to learn to twirl the baton.
In the summer of 1952, the Winthrop band instructor paid a visit to Marge’s parents out at their farm by Winthrop. He wanted her to become a baton twirler, so she attended a twirling clinic in Bemidji. Marge was a majorette with the Winthrop High School band for the next two years until she graduated in 1954.
“Once I got that first stick, I just wanted to be twirling.” she said. “So that was very, very much my life.”
In 1953, Marge also started teaching other girls interested in baton so they would have more majorettes in the future.
Before she graduated in 1954, Tony Kloeckl was at a parade in Henderson, Minn. and saw Marge marching with the Winthrop High School band.
“I’m going to marry that majorette one day,” he said to his buddy.
And he did… on Jan. 31, 1957.
After they were married, Marge moved to Arlington to join her husband and started a family of six children.
When her children were young, the local band instructor called Marge to ask if she would teach baton twirling to some girls so he could have a drum major and majorettes in the Arlington-Green Isle (AGI) High School band. She would go to Green Isle one day a week and teach at different locations and halls that were available.
Around this same time, Marge’s family purchased the St. Mary’s Parish House and Hall. She began teaching baton twirling at the Parish Hall for students five to 14 years of age four days a week after school. She even added tumbling and basic gymnastics to her lesson and charged only 25 cents per lesson. Marge continued to teach baton twirling over the next 20 years.
“Being a mother and a baton teacher, I love being with children and students, and that helped me keep my ambition going with twirling and baton,” she said.
During her time teaching baton, her students performed in every Memorial Day parade, following the high school band down Main Street in Arlington. The outfits were simple – red shorts or pants with a white shirt marked with the letter “A” on the front. She said the students loved marching in the parade and also performed at halftime basketball games and other school activities. Marge’s students provided all future baton twirlers for the AGI High School band.
In 1968, Charlene Rickard moved to town and introduced Marge to the fire baton.
“I immediately went and bought a fire baton for $10 (the price now is $100), and have continued picking it up and twirling for special events like Arli-Dazzle,” she said.
Marge said the routines of a standard baton and a fire baton are similar, but the fire baton routines are simpler… and there are certain things you may not want to try with fire.
“I used to take my other baton and flip it on the left side, it would roll over the back of my neck, and come down across my right arm. You don’t want to do that with a fire baton. You probably could if you had a long enough fire baton, but I never tried that one. I just did the simple ones with the fire,” she said.
While larger universities may still have majorettes performing spectacular routines ahead of the band, “small-town twirling,” as Marge calls it, isn’t what it used to be.
“I think the tradition of small-town bands has gotten away from majorettes. It’s been kind of a fading thing and isn’t as popular as it was 50 years ago,” Marge said. “I think nowadays a lot of the bands have three or four girls across the front with flags and they do a simple routine. It’s not the old baton being twirled up in the air.”
Even as traditions continue to evolve, some things never change. Such is the case with Marge and her unwavering loyalty, dedication, and deep love for her community.
Marge is a proud Sibley County resident. She was born in Gaylord and lived there for 12 years, attending the country school back in the 40s. She moved to Winthrop in 1948 as a seventh grader after her dad bought a farm there.
“It was a challenge because you went from a country school with 18 kids between five and 18 and then you go to high school and you have to get to be friends with seventh graders. Within a couple of years, I made lots of friends and got to be a majorette, so it was extra fun,” she said.
Marge’s husband, Tony, moved to Arlington in 1956 to manage his brother-in-law’s plumbing shop and Marge followed shortly after in 1957, after they were married. They later purchased the shop in 1976, naming it Y-Not Plumbing & Heating. (Note: Y-Not is Tony spelled backwards!) They’ve lived in the Arlington community now for about 70 years, and she said they’ve had a good life there.
“I love this area. I haven’t moved beyond 15 miles all my life, and I’m 89,” she said.
Marge and Tony recently celebrated 69 years of marriage. While she is hoping to retire soon, she has not yet retired her baton.
“To this day I pick up the baton and show it to little girls. I just love the idea that you can still do it. Twirling baton is like playing the piano – once you learn it, you never forget!”
Comments