Bell to skip Prom for dance team tryouts

Brittany Bell cheers on the football team at the state championship game at Mizzou.

Brittany Bell is skipping her senior prom to dance. Yes, you read that right.

The senior Pattonville Varsity Drill Team member was recently accepted to the University of Kentucky, and tryouts for its dance team are being held on the weekend of prom.

Bell admits that it is a big risk missing her senior prom, as Kentucky’s dance squad is a pretty big threat nationwide.

“I’m pretty nervous, and I still have one trick that I need to perfect before I feel 100 percent confident,” Bell said. “Overall, I do think that missing prom this year will be worth it. I had a really great prom experience last year, and it wasn’t life changing, so I’m really not too concerned to miss this one.”

Although Bell is sad that her high school drill team experience recently came to an end, she has many new and exciting things to look forward to at Kentucky.

“I’m most excited for the sporting events because Kentucky is such a big school and their athletics are really intense so there are a lot of fans,” she said. “If I make the team, I’ll be on the football field and the basketball court, and that would be a dream come true.”

Skipping senior prom is a pretty big deal as it is a memory that people hold on to for the rest of their lives, but she made her decision to miss it while she was at a dance clinic at Kentucky.

“At the clinic, they give out these things called video bypasses which means I get an immediate invite to tryouts. Right after the clinic came to an end, there was a Q&A when they told everyone all of the information for tryouts, and the more they spoke, the more in love with the school I became,” Bell said. “When I found out that tryouts were on the same day as prom, I was so sad and I just told myself that if I get a video bypass, then my decision is made, I would be destined to tryout. After the Q&A ended, I received a video bypass, and I decided to tryout.”

Bell has had many great accomplishments throughout her PHS Drill Team career from placing Top 10 nationally multiple times, to being the captain of VDT for two years in a row. As she moves on to Kentucky next year, she will try to continue her dance success with the Wildcats.