It’s a well-known fact that Her Campus at UVA has the best Campus Correspondents in the entire world (for the non-HC’ers out there, CC = chapter presidents/editors in chief), and I’m not just saying that because I’m one of them. You might be skeptical. You’re probably thinking, “Uh, Summer, you’ve literally done nothing out of the ordinary as a CC, what makes you so great?” Well, like I said, we have the best Campus CorrespondentS. Plural correspondents. Two of us. By ourselves, Sarah and I are just run of the mill Her Campus leaders but put us together and we form the ultimate dream team. Why? We’ve been friends for over SIX YEARS. That means we could have had 8 children together by now! Sticking together throughout the awkward years (which are still happening, TBH) forms a bond that can’t be broken. Get ready to dive into the long history of your fearless leaders’ friendship.
Let’s start at the beginning.
No, not that far back. But wow, we were cute as heck.
Yep, that’s Sarah in the back in the teal dress, and me on the front left in the orange dress. She was going into 11th grade and I was going into 10th.
Sarah Vanlandingham and I met at nerd camp, the Summer Enrichment Program at UVA (go hoos). I say it’s nerd camp because that’s exactly what it is. SEP is a magical place where smart kids go to take fun, nerdy classes during the summer, and make some of the best friends of their entire life. In fact, Sarah and I loved it so much that both worked at SEP our first summers out of college as counselors.
Sarah’s a year older than I am, so we met when I was going into 9th grade and she was going into 10th. (The picture above is from the next summer, I couldn’t find the ultimate fetus pictures from our first year together.) Her birthday is in July, so she was often put in the group of girls a year younger than her. While we were never in the same group, we were on the same floor in the camp dorms. We became friends pretty quickly, but camp is only 2 weeks long, and she graduated the year before I did. Like most camp friends, I assumed I wouldn’t see her again, but I was wrong.
As it turned out…… Sarah and I live in the same county! And we both play the trumpet! Put those two things together and you soon start to see each other at band events. Then, in 2014, the fall of our junior/senior years, we were reunited through the Loudoun Youth Symphony Orchestra.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcbWReIFfNQ
I couldn’t find a picture of us from any concert, but I found a link to our first performance together. You can’t actually see us in the video, but still give it a listen for the sake of good music. And according to Sarah, a selfie of us I took during rehearsal below. Look at how cute we are!
LYSO is a good way to bond through shared hatred. LYSO is an amazing program filled with *super* talented kids, but it just wasn’t our thing. What was our thing, though, was fueling our egos by playing in a county wide audition orchestra. So, out of pure self-interest, we both stayed. I’m so glad we did. Sarah and I were the best and worst parts of that orchestra. We were two talented trumpet players holding down the fort of randomly inserted brass parts (any brass player that has ever played in an orchestra knows what I’m talking about). On the other hand, we were two giggly, snarky, and talkative teen girls. Between whispering during the 176 measure rests and making fun of our eccentric conductor, our long lost friendship was rekindled.
But…the inevitable happened: Sarah graduated and went off to UVA, while I was still waiting for high school to end. I quit LYSO halfway through the spring semester my senior year because it wasn’t fun without someone to screw around with. Luckily, this time we knew we’d see each other again because, obviously, I joined her at UVA a year later. Here’s the best part: we both stuck with trumpet, stayed true to our band kid selves, and joined the Cavalier Marching Band.
We’re at our hottest when we’re in those sexy band uniforms. (ft. Ruby)
Side note: I just want to put it out there that Sarah is one of the best trumpet players I’ve ever heard, and is one of the trumpet section leaders because of it. She’s killing it.
Sarah and I became close as ever, and last fall, she asked me if I wanted to join Her Campus. I said yes, and here we are. We’re still as giggly, snarky, and talkative as we were in high school, and though we’ve changed over the years, our friendship hasn’t. I love being CC with Sarah and I couldn’t imagine it any other way. So what makes us such a dynamic duo? Our unfailing, sappy, sarcastic, goofy friendship. Whether it be staying up late uploading articles or screaming “DEAD BODIES” on game day mornings (don’t question it), Sarah and I are in it for the long run.
Name a more iconic duo. I’ll wait.
HCXO, Summer