Laura Minter has a great memory.
Sure, her ability to remember choreography as a member of the March Madness Marching Band color guard is pretty darn spectacular. But the MMMB memory she likes best dates back to 2013, when the band performed “Born to Run” in the Lexington Fourth of July Parade.
That was the band’s first-ever performance of MMMB Minister of the Moves Tripp Bratton’s arrangement of the Springsteen tune. It was also the first time the color guard introduced Lexington to its opalescent red, white, and blue wing-like costuming—known in the dance community as “Isis wings”—purchased for the band’s performance in the 2013 Kentucky Derby Festival Pegasus Parade and since used in several MMMB band gigs.
Laura recalls heavy rain that July 4 soaked the band and the luminous wings, but it didn’t dampen the MMMB spirit.
“It was so much fun,” she says. “Once we accepted the fact that we were going to get wet, we just went with it. We danced down Main Street, jumping in puddles as we went. It was such a joyful afternoon!”
That wet and wild day is one of hundreds of happy memories the Lexington native and pharmacist says she has experienced since joining the band in 2009. Being in band, and color guard, was a new adventure for Laura.
“I had zero band experience before joining MMMB,” she says. “I was not in band in high school or college. What I lack I try to make up with my ability to remember the moves to old choreography.”
Those moves were on display during MMMB’s “Last Circus on Earth” performance at Lexington’s 2019 Thriller Stage Showcase and Halloween Parade on Oct. 27. Suited in a red jacket and a glittering top hat, Laura played an animal tamer facing off against a dancing Chinese dragon during some of the show’s most energetic choreography. Her favorite MMMB stage show however, she says, is 2015’s “Nightmare.”
“It’s such a creative mixture of songs and choreography,” says Laura. “While I try to maintain a stern or creepy expression throughout, I keep smiling. It’s just so much fun to do.”
Laura’s dedication to each performance and the rehearsals that precede them is impressive, given the often-long days and weekends that she works as a pharmacist. When she’s not at work or in band, she’s helping find homes for rescued greyhounds through her volunteer work with Greyhound Pets of America-Lexington.
“You’ll find me at a meet-and-greet with a foster greyhound hoping to find it a home,” says the mom of four retired greyhound racers and three cats. Laura says jokingly that she has worked as a pharmacist for over 20 years to support what she calls her “greyhound habit.” But she does take breaks; she and her husband, artist and WRFL DJ Kenn Minter, travel somewhere new every year to get away and rest. (Fun fact: Kenn is the artist who designed the MMMB logo monkey.)
This year, the couple traveled to Budapest, Vienna, and Prague, she says. A trip to Yellowstone is scheduled for next year.
Says Laura: “It doesn’t have to be big international travel to be fun” or make new memories.