By Kayla Garner, Staff Reporter
This year is the second year the position of color wrangler has been a part of Stampede. Color wranglers are responsible for hyping up team spirit and serve as a resource for Stampede leaders and new students.
There are two color wranglers for each of the four teams, one male and one female. This year’s color wranglers are Jesper Jiang and Claire Shuler (Orange), Abigail Kendall and Jackson Cox (Red), Juel-Leighana Nava and Dylan Scott (Blue), and Lucas Pruitt and Hanna Hayes (Green).
Color wranglers’ main jobs are to fill in any temporary holes in leadership and to check in on how students and teams are doing.
If a wrangler or a SWAT leader needs to step away from their group to handle a personal matter, a color wrangler will step in and spend time with the group to cover that missing leadership position.
Color wranglers can also help provide one on one attention to handle group conflicts or to help a student who needs a little help transitioning.
“Thankfully there were no conflicts in Stampede [last year]. I just think it’s good to always have somebody extra that you can pull and say ‘Hey, can you please help me with this?’,” said Pruitt.
Color wranglers are also responsible for taking attendance. By keeping track of which students are coming to Stampede events, color wranglers can identify the students who are not coming. Then they can reach out to find out why those students are not coming and can ask them how they are doing. Although, sometimes students cannot come to Stampede because of work or extracurricular activities.
Color wranglers, like Pruitt, truly understand the importance of Stampede for incoming students and are ready to help kick off the freshmen class’s first year with a bang.
“Stampede can really integrate [new students] into the college experience, make them comfortable [in their new home], give them resources to dive into their college experience [and] can create a huge pool of people that can be your friends,” Pruitt said.
Pruitt is excited to get to know the new freshmen class and to welcome them to Hardin-Simmons University.
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