Sarah Secrist
Title:
Drum Major and Band Captain
Major:
Music Therapy
Year:
Class of 2024
Hometown:
Dallas, GA
The last 60 seconds of the 2021 football championship are ones that Georgia fans will remember forever. Over 70,000 fans held their breath as Georgia’s Kelee Ringo sprinted across the field with his game-sealing interception. At the same time, Sarah Secrist, who became a drum major just in time for UGA’s national championship win, held back tears of excitement as she led the band into a truly celebratory rendition of “Glory, Glory.”
“I will never forget seeing that and absolutely freaking out,” she says. “I almost fell off my ladder. Conducting the band, hearing the stadium go wild, and knowing we were about to win a national championship was one of the best moments of my life.”
Sarah is the youngest of five children and the most recent inductee for a long-standing family tradition. All five of her siblings were handed a trumpet in middle school and introduced to marching band in high school.
“My dad was a trumpet player and did marching band, and his mom—my grandmother—had also done marching band. So it got passed down through the family.”
At two weeks old, Sarah was in the stands watching her siblings play in the marching band. Now, 15 years after Julie, her oldest sister and former Redcoat member, graduated from UGA, Sarah is continuing the family legacy but playing to her own tune.
A music therapy major with a minor in gerontology and a certificate in musical theater performance, Sarah plans to use her musical training to become a board-certified Music Therapist and help older adults with cognitive issues improve their quality of living.
“I will never forget seeing that and absolutely freaking out,” she says. “I almost fell off my ladder. Conducting the band, hearing the stadium go wild, and knowing we were about to win a national championship was one of the best moments of my life.”
Sarah Secrist
Drum Major and Band Captain
When Sarah was in high school, her grandmother was diagnosed with dementia and moved into an assisted living facility. The memories that Sarah holds dear to her heart are when she and her grandmother would sing together. She remembers that the music was very motivating for her grandmother in her final years.
Music therapy is the use of music in a therapeutic setting to help people with physical, cognitive, communication, and social goals, among others. This year, Sarah completed a practicum placement at UGA’s CARE Center with a dementia support group and another practicum with the Children's Healthcare of Atlanta’s pediatric ICU. In both cases, she used music therapy to help people, from heartbeat recordings to bereavement services to pain management.
“Many people don’t know about the impact that can come from music therapy,” she says, “but this type of care can help make the hospital a less scary place for patients and help normalize patient care.”
Though Sarah works with people of different ages and conditions her main interest lies in working with older adults and memory care. Patients with Alzheimer's or dementia, as well as their caregivers, can benefit from music therapy. It’s a useful tool to help them cope with loss and ease the transition into hospice care, among other things.
Sarah plans to be fully certified by 2024. Until then, she is determined take full advantage of her time at UGA and has been a Presidential Scholar or on the Dean’s List for every semester despite her busy schedule.
“The secret to time management is loving what you do,” she says. “Even though caregiving is technically a job, it's also something I love. The same thing goes for my major and my classes. I'm genuinely excited to go to class. There’s nothing in my schedule that doesn’t put a smile on my face.”
