FFCC Announces 2017 Hall of Fame Inductees

The Florida Federation of Colorguards Circuit is proud to announce the election of Stephen Porter and Carrie Short to the FFCC Hall of Fame. They join 24 distinguished fellow honorees and will be inducted in a ceremony at the 2017 FFCC Championships on April 2.

The Hall of Fame is the highest honor presented to individuals who have influenced FFCC history through their achievements in performance, in struction, adjudication or administration. Each year, outstanding individuals who have made significant contributions to the activity are nominated by the membership at large and inducted.

Stephen Porter –

Stephen is truly a product of the FFCC. He began his winterguard career as a band student at Largo High School, under the instruction of Michael James, Tom Slaughter & Willie Agustin. As a music education student at UCF, he marched with Beyond Winterguard under the direction of Jon & Cathy Kersten, the Knights under Michael James, and a later stint with NEI in 2004 under Jill Moser and Robbie DuFresne. While his performance career was shorter than he’d hoped, he has made up for that as an instructor. He began teaching Colonial High School and working with the Knights winterguard in the early 2000s, and Lyman High School in 2002. In addition to his Music Education degree, he returned to school and received an associate’s degree in dance, and became the full time dance teacher at Lyman in 2002, building a program that started from virtually nothing to what today stands at over 200 dance technique students, a fifty-member dance team, a fifty-member colorguard, and three winterguards.

Stephen’s accolades as a designer and director are well-known. His first FFCC team to attend the WGI World Championships, Colonial High School, came home with the Scholastic A Gold Medal in 2008. In 2009, Lyman High School earned the bronze in Scholastic A. In 2011, his independent team, Orlando Visual, which began the season in Independent A class but was promoted over dinner at their first regional, took the silver medal in Independent Open. In 2014, Lyman earned the Gold Medal in Scholastic A. In addition, he’s been the designer or director for over 10 WGI finalist teams, and countless FFCC medalists. He has worked with a plethora of FFCC teams besides his own, including Apopka HS, Colonial HS, Lake Howell HS, Storm Winterguard, Gainesville Independent, Knights Winterguard, Dr. Phillips HS, Winter Park HS, Timber Creek HS, East Ridge HS, Fleming Island HS, Sebastian River HS, and more.

Carrie Short –

Carrie became a performer in the FFCC in 1997 in the Company Color Guard. Later starting her teaching career with East Lake High School and ultimately ending up at Seminole High School.

Carrie has held positions as Color Guard technician, designer, and director with the Seminole for the past 20 years. She is a fiercely motivated educator who demands as much quality as she gives. She has had success at every level of FFCC and WGI competition winning Circuit Championships in every Scholastic National Class and making Scholastic World Finals in A, Open, and World Classes. The Seminole Open guard was the WGI Bronze Medalist in 2007 and has finished as high as 5th place in Scholastic World Class Championships. Carrie’s teaching experience has helped Seminole Middle School win 10 FFCC Cadet Class Championships and she has started an elementary guard program called Little Hawks for the Seminole community.

Carrie is tireless in her pursuit of excellence from every student she teaches…whether in the winter guard arena or the classroom. She is the founding director of the iHawk Personalized Learning Academy at Seminole High School. Carrie is also the AP Economics teacher at Seminole. She holds students to high standards. Her expectations for quality are equaled by her popularity as a teacher.