Vanguard Blog

All Blog Posts

In Memoriam – Gloria Madrid-Flores

Sep 4, 2024 | Blog Post

It is with a great deal of sadness that we share with our Vanguard family the passing of one of our most recent Vanguard Hall of Fame inductees, Gloria Madrid-Flores. Gloria passed away on August 4, 2024, surrounded by her family. She was a wonderful woman, who has...

In Memoriam – Gloria Madrid-Flores

Sep 4, 2024 | Blog Post

It is with a great deal of sadness that we share with our Vanguard family the passing of one of our most recent Vanguard Hall of Fame inductees, Gloria Madrid-Flores. Gloria passed away on August 4, 2024, surrounded by her family. She was a wonderful woman, who has...

International Women’s Day Spotlight: An Interview with Vanguard’s First Female Corps Director

Mar 8, 2022 | Blog Post, Santa Clara Vanguard

For Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day, we are shining a spotlight on Vanguard’s FIRST female corps director, Rebecca Compton-Allen, best known as RCA! VMAPA is proud to be a vehicle for RCA, and all of the women who presently work at Vanguard, to...

Celebrating Black History Month With SCVWG’s Story of John Henry

Feb 10, 2022 | Blog Post

For Black History Month, we are celebrating by revisiting the story of John Henry with Vanguard performance coach and storyteller, Wayne Harris. A freedman during the Reconstruction Era, post Civil War, John Henry was a railroad steel driver and, as legend has it,...

History of The Bottle Dance, In Honor of Pat Pierson

Sep 5, 2021 | Alumni, Blog Post, Santa Clara Vanguard

Imagine a long row of dancers, hands interlocked and arms held at an unshakeable ninety-degree angle. As the unmistakable strains of the “Wedding Dance” from Fiddler on the Roof swell, the line moves forward as one. Step. Drag. Step. With the lock of each passing...

In Memoriam

Aug 28, 2021 | Blog Post, Santa Clara Vanguard

This past year, we lost two important pillars of the Vanguard organization and its history. Don and Ginny Koester passed peacefully on June 27th and February 1st of 2021 respectively. Together they served the Vanguard organization from 1970-1999 and briefly from...