Utah Military Academy held its Military ball at the Utah State Capitol in Salt Lake City on Saturday, January 25th. A record number of cadets from different schools and districts attended this once-in-a-lifetime event that was not worth missing.
This year, UMA’s wing leadership was in charge of holding the Military Ball for Utah’s JROTC programs. Responsibility for hosting the event rotates to a different program each year. Ben Lomond High School hosted last year’s ball at Weber State.
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MAJ Workman stated that the reason why they made that decision was because
most of the Military Balls held by different schools were mostly in northern Utah, which
limited the number of students participating in that event. With the Military Ball
being held at the State Capitol, it would potentially attract many other schools from different areas along with Northern Utah.
Many JROTC staff agreed with this decision. “Now that I’ve been to 3 of them, I feel like this change from Weber State to the Capitol would help Cadets enjoy the scenery and how they will look at it as a historical building,” Sgt Jimenez said.
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LtCol. Tisher said that he was hopeful that this Military Ball would draw more cadets
to this event than last year. Maj. Workman had predicted that an estimated 500 cadets
would come to the Military Ball.
The leadership also wanted to encourage attendance in other ways. They created a new feature to sell only single tickets to the Military Ball tickets, which would not require cadets to bring a date. UMA also provided cadets the opportunity to take the bus to help them go to
the ball in case parents or legal guardians were not able to take them to the state capitol.
The Military Ball has given cadets at Utah Military Academy and other schools
an experience where they can hang out with other cadets from other schools and see how
they dress. Though most dances only allow 9th through 12th graders to attend, the military ball involves the whole JROTC program, which includes 8th-12th graders. This gives younger cadets a taste of what future dances would look like, without having to wait for another year to attend high school dances.
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event than any other Military Ball that other schools have held. “We had 450 attendees this year. That is by far the largest number we have ever had. We also invited more schools with JROTC programs than ever before,” explained Major Workman.
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