I have been a local here for 25 years, and I have stood on the turf at Woodforest Bank Stadium more times than I can count. But Thursday night, October 15, 2026, before a single kickoff whistle, I watched something that stopped me cold and made me feel genuinely lucky to live here.
The Highlanders were about to play Cleveland. The lights were up. The air had that perfect October crispness that makes Texas football feel like it was invented just for nights like this. And out on the field, decades of women in green and white were finding each other by year, by era, by memory.
That was the moment I knew this week was going to be one for the books.
50 Years of Kicks
The TWHS Highsteppers were founded in 1976 by Kathy Harlan at McCullough High School. Harlan came from a background in gymnastics and synchronized swimming, and that combination is exactly what you see in the team's signature style: precise, athletic, and timed down to the breath. She also designed the uniform that year. Real talk, that same uniform is still on the field today, 50 years later. The signature shoe started as a green-and-white saddle oxford, and you can spot it from the top row of the stands.
When The Woodlands High School opened on Research Forest Drive in 1996, the Highsteppers moved with the community and became its team. The continuity didn't stop there. From 1976 through 2020, the program had only two directors: Harlan herself, and then Deanna Smith, who had danced as a Highstepper from 1979 to 1982 under Harlan before taking over as director in 1998. Two directors across 44 years. That is not a coincidence. That is a culture.
Director Heather Hays came on in 2021. She danced as a Highstepper from 2001 to 2004, then went on to become a Kilgore College Rangerette and a Baylor Songleader. She knows this world from the inside. Assistant director Emily Shreve danced from 2013 to 2017. When you look at the lineage of this program, the thread is impossible to miss: Highsteppers train Highsteppers who come back and lead Highsteppers. Mothers, daughters, and sisters have shared this experience across generations. That is the whole story in one sentence.
The Parade of Decades
Before the game, alumni joined the current team on the field for a dance celebration. And here is the part I keep coming back to when I tell this story: the alumni gathered by the decade they danced in. There were women who stepped on that original McCullough turf in the late 1970s standing alongside women who were on this very field just a few years ago. Each group had a sign identifying their era. The 2000s crew was out there in force, grinning like they'd never left.
I called it the parade of decades, and that is exactly what it was. A living timeline, moving together on grass under stadium lights. Some of those women hadn't been back on a football field in 30 years. You could feel it in the room, or rather on the field. There is something about stepping onto that turf that puts a person right back in the moment they were 16 and training until their legs gave out.
The founding members from the McCullough years were there. They held a sign that read McC Highsteppers, 1979-1980, Founding Members. One of them had her pom-pom raised straight overhead. As a local, I can tell you that image said everything about why this community keeps showing up for itself.
The Highlanders then went out and beat Cleveland 59-0. A perfect ending to the on-field portion of the week.
The Eversteppers
Three days later, on October 18, the alumni dinner brought everyone back together. That is where my daughter stood up and gave the speech announcing the alumni group's new name: the Eversteppers.
I will be honest. I was not prepared for how much that word would land. Ever. Not once-steppers, not former-steppers. Ever. It captures exactly what this program does to a person. You don't age out of it. You carry it.
The name also gives the alumni something formal and lasting. A structure. A home. Assistant director Emily Shreve put it plainly: "Our hope is that future generations feel inspired to keep the traditions of Highsteppers alive." The Eversteppers name makes that hope concrete. It connects everyone who ever wore the uniform to everyone who will.
Why This Matters to The Woodlands
I have sold real estate in this community for years, and people ask me constantly what makes The Woodlands different. I always land on the same answer: the institutions here have roots. They are not brand-new and shiny. They have history built by real people who stayed and kept showing up.
The Highsteppers are one of those institutions. Kathy Harlan started something in 1976 that now has 50 years of mothers and daughters and sisters woven through it. The uniform has not changed. The precision of the style has not changed. What has changed is how far it reaches. This season, the team is performing dances from earlier eras of the program, honoring the women who built it. And on November 8, 2026, the TWHS Highsteppers will open for the Rockettes' Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.
Director Heather Hays said it simply: "I'm looking forward to seeing our uniform on the iconic Radio City Music Hall stage." That uniform, the one Kathy Harlan designed in 1976. On that stage. Trust me on this, if that doesn't give you chills, you haven't been paying attention to what this program is.
I have watched a lot of things come and go along Research Forest Drive over 25 years. The Highsteppers are not going anywhere. They are, by the word they chose for themselves, forever. If you were a Highstepper, or if you ever stood in those stands cheering for one, I want to hear from you: what is the memory that still sticks with you?
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