Elbert County Comprehensive High school's JROTC program continued its recent dominance after the program added two more state championships to its growing collection.
The state championship wins came in the JROTC State Championship Meet, held in Griffin, where Elbert finished first out of the 80 schools in attendance in the female armed squad and unarmed platoon events.
In addition to the first-place finishes, they also racked up a pair of runner-up finishes in the female unarmed squad and color guard competitions while Landon Bowman finished fifth overall individually in the male exhibition competition.
The female armed squad win gives Elbert wins in back-to-back state championship meets after it won the event in 2024 and the 2025 championship meet was cancelled.
"We practice every single day for about three hours," drill coach Nicole "Drill Mama" Ulrich said. "Sometimes they come in and it's literally repeating over and over again, me standing outside watching them do these moves and when you're trained your eye is drawn to the mistakes. So I just go through and fix every single one of them the best that we can. It's just amazing how well these girls—all of the team in fact—work together to help each other and hold each other up."
Ulrich said the female armed squad consists of seven cadets, six in the squad and then the commander. They carry an M1903 rifle and have to execute a series of drill maneuvers. They are graded on a range of details such as their alignment, taking the same size step, distance of their arm swing, etc.
“It takes a lot of practice, but those girls have just knocked it out of the park. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a run that perfect before, they didn’t make one mistake” Ulrich said.
Meanwhile Ulrich said the unarmed platoon win was significant for the program because their previous state championship wins came from armed squads.
“The platoon is 12 students and a commander and they have a small box—I believe the box is 95 feet by 85 feet—and they have to keep the cadets inside this box while they do the sequence,” Ulrich said. “Again, they only have eight minutes to do it and you have to have 12 kids that are all doing these moves at the exact same moment and look exactly alike.”
Ulrich said after each team performs, they have to wait to find out how they finished, but after they found out they had finished first a celebration broke out.
“We were jumping around, screaming, just so happy. They were elated and that’s why I do what I do,” Ulrich said. “To be able to take something that I’m pretty good at and teach somebody and to watch them succeed at it—there is no other feeling in the world like it, especially when they win.”
While the wins came with a lot of hard work and commitment to practicing the maneuvers, Ulrich said they did not come without some obstacles to overcome. In the middle of the season, two of the more experienced members of the drill team were forced to take an unplanned leave from the team due to unrelated medical issues.
“That armed squad and unarmed platoon would not have even been able to qualify for state if it hadn’t been for a bunch of kids stepping into those places where we were down kids,” Ulrich said. “They were able to go to the area qualifier and get us a position at state.”
In addition to the team effort, Ulrich also highlighted a duo of team members who took on a new challenge, one of whom placed in the state championship meet.
Landon Bowman, who finished fifth in the state, and Jacob Brown decided that they wanted Elbert to be able to compete in the “exhibition” event.
“Exhibition is the one where they’re twirling and throwing rifles and all of that. We really haven’t had much of that because I focus mostly on the other sequences, but we had two boys step forward and really wanted to do it...at area Bowman got first and Brown got second or third so I was able to take them both to state.”
Since Ulrich got involved with the drill team in 2022, they have won three state championships and a national championship.
She said she only ever got involved with the team in the first place to assist her husband, JROTC instructor Daniel Ulrich.
“He said, ‘You’re great with kids, I’m really not all that great at this,’ and he asked if I would mind coming and helping and of course I’m going to help and support my husband,” Ulrich said. “Shortly after that we realized that I was really good at it ... He’s like ‘I think you missed your calling. This is what you were supposed to be doing.’ So it means a lot. It means a lot that those instructors don’t look down on me because I didn’t retire from the Army. It means a lot to me that they have accepted me into their fold and those instructors up there are some of the greatest people I’ve ever known.”