Playing with fire

Some people like to burn the candle at both ends.

For Erin Rae Fluegge, it's a baton.

The Southeast Missouri State University professor is the four-alarm answer to the age-old question of whatever becomes of former marching band twirlers.

Answer: They don't die, they just go down to the Cape Girardeau riverfront and put on blazing performances for pedestrians.

On the banks of the Mississippi, Fluegge douses her batons in lighter fluid and flawlessly maneuvers them behind her back, between her legs and deftly catches them after tossing them into the night sky. She put on such flaming exhibits as a twirler for the Jackson High School Marching Chiefs and later as the featured twirler for the Golden Eagles Marching Band at Southeast. These days she's marching to the beat of her own drummer, still entranced by the art of the batons she first picked up about 30 years ago.

Erin Fluegge twirls flaming batons along the riverfront on June 16 in downtown Cape Girardeau.Laura Simon

"I remember watching a band festival and watching the twirlers, one of my very good teachers in high school, her daughter was the head twirler there, and I just thought she was so cool and I wanted to do that, so I started taking lessons from one of the other girls after that girl graduated, and I just fell in love with it and stuck with it," Fluegge said.

The love affair began at the age of 7, and just a few years later gave a premonition of her career in education when she gave lessons to her younger sister, who also would become a Jackson twirler.

By her freshman year in high school, the twirler began to create cash with her wand. She gave "lots and lots" of lessons.

"That was like my first job, I think, pretty much," Fluegge said.

Her sophomore year, the twirling line, which she said always had about five to seven members, added a new twist: Fire.

Fluegge said director Janet Ludwig always encouraged the twirlers to try something new, so the group started off with single-fire batons and worked their way up to double fire.

"It was awesome," Fluegge said. "It was one of the coolest shows that we ever had. It was something people always looked forward to. I mean, if you're from the area, you know that our high schools, not only do they love their sports, they also love their marching bands, and so when the twirlers came out and did fire, it was always a treat for people to watch just because they think you're kind of a little crazy to do it, and I guess ... all of us are, but it's fun. It's an energy rush. I've always enjoyed it."

She said members of the marching band always liked it, too, as long as the twirlers were at a safe distance.

As for her parents?

They stood behind their daughter -- also at a safe distance.

"My mom got me a pair of knives," Fluegge said.

The knives had dull edges and were not capable of cutting, but had hooks on the ends and could be connected to one another. She can manipulate them like a samurai warrior/gymnast.

"I just really loved them, and then I heard there were these knives that you could get that you lit on fire ..." she said.

That hot act had to wait to make its debut at Southeast, where she was the lone twirler for the Golden Eagles from 1997 to 1999.

"When I was in college they really gave me the creative freedom to do whatever I wanted to, which I really loved," Fluegge said. "The more flames, the better."

At Southeast, her basic compensation was free uniforms, which would have been rather expensive. A stage to perform for crowds and the friendships with band members were the real treasures.

"I was going to do it because I loved it," Fluegge said. "I was just thankful that they bought me uniforms."

The batons ultimately were extinguished and stored away, but her passion to perform still burned. She occasionally broke them out on warranted occasions, like the Fourth of July.

They've been finding their way into her hands more often these days, and it didn't take much with her highly flammable nature. Last year it was a trip to the waterfront and encountering a local man messing with poi, which she describes as "a flaming ball on a string."

She asked him if she could give it a try, and said she ended up surprising the man, who had previously expressed doubt.

She's also encountered fire artists at music festivals and other places.

"It was nice for me to learn there's a community of people who like to do this stuff," Fluegge said. "... So if there are people that want to learn this, there are people that just want to show you because it's something exciting and just fun to try. That's how I found it. There's a community of flow artists in Cape Girardeau."

As with other flow artists, people wandering in the area will stop and watch her perform.

Many do not realize she's a professor at Southeast -- "I'm the leadership person in the College of Business" -- and it's not anything she tries to hide.

"You hear people say, 'Hey, that's Dr. Erin,' and I'm like 'Yeah, that's me over here,'" Fluegge said.

Hiding is not in her nature. She volunteers that she's the person often seen jogging in neon colors on the Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge, sometimes in preparation for marathons, which she began competing at in 2013. She certainly wasn't hiding when she took the stage and won Mrs. Missouri in 2014 and later competed at the Mrs. America pageant in Tucson, Arizona.

She travels extensively, believing new places and meeting new people help keep her mind sharp, part of being the best possible person she can be, and subsequently the best teacher she can be for her students, whom she talks about fondly.

She lives what she preaches to them, although she shuns any image of a lectern. Her style is student involvement and self discovery, with bottom-line messages of empowerment and living life large in the moment. A symbol of that message, an "&," is tattooed on one of her toes.

"It's important to remember the past; it's important to think about the future, but really try to live in the present," Fluegge said about the ampersand. "Do as much as you can. Life is short; have fun. I wrote my dissertation on workplace fun and why it's important. My students can tell you we like to have fun in the classroom. I work, we work hard, but we also play hard, too."

And on her own time, that occasionally involves playing with fire.

jbreer@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3629