MMI Knights Precision Drill Team

03/16/2022

Highlighting Cadets Gita and Reva Goldberg! Congratulations on becoming the newest Commander!

02/07/2021

A very Special Happy Birthday to a member of the very first MMI Knights Precision Drill team, Bill Russell. He and others like Gene Hyche, changed the face of MMI forever.

February 7, 2020.

01/13/2021

FROM THE MMI PRESIDENT:

MMI has had to adapt to the realities of a changing world over the course of its long history. In the 1970s came race and gender integration. In 2006, MMI’s college entered the Alabama Community College System to halt low enrollment and recurring financial struggles, and the MMI high school was required to close, leaving MMI as a military junior college only. Today we will adapt again in response to the ongoing national conversation that is impelling a reckoning with our country’s racially divisive past.

The environment today is a continuation of a broad movement that has spanned our antebellum history, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the more recent Civil Rights era, a movement intended to ultimately remove racial division and discrimination from our national character. In this regard, MMI will adapt by recognizing the potentially negative perception associated with the name of our precision drill team.

This team, formed in 1950, was formed by WWII veterans using as a model the crack post-WWII U.S. Army precision drill team, the Berlin Honor Guard, with which one of them had served. They felt it imperative that MMI be represented by such a unit. So they formed a precision drill team with a noble purpose – to represent MMI as a military drill unit dedicated to the highest standards of leadership and precision drill, and to be a precision military drill unit that was simply the best of the best. The team was formed, and a name was chosen, The White Knights.

Of course at that time the name had no correlation to anything but the positive image reflected in the fundamental definition of the term “white knight.” Unfortunately, in the years subsequent to the formation of the team, the name White Knights became, and continues to be, co-opted by racist organizations that are the very antithesis of what our country, our school and this drill team stand for. So, it is MMI’s intention to ensure that there are no potentially adverse correlations or associations of our precision drill team, and by extension our college, with these racist organizations because of a common name.

Therefore, MMI will adapt, and the White Knights will go forward with a new name: The MMI Knights Precision Drill Team – the MMI Knights for short. The design of the logo will remain the same with the word “MMI” replacing the word “White,” and the history and tradition of this distinguished and cherished organization will continue to be preserved, honored and emulated as we move forward to achieve preeminence with our precision drill team – The MMI Knights.

COL David J. Mollahan, USMC (Ret)
President
Marion Military Institute

January 13, 2021

11/13/2019

2019 Drill team! The current Commander is Cadet is Ayaan Dani. The knights marched in Anniston at the Depot, and the team received a 2 Star coin, the event was televised! Congratulations team! Here is the link to watch the performance!
https://www.wbrc.com/2019/11/07/anniston-army-depot-holds-veterans-day-ceremony/

04/13/2018

The Knights preparing for this weekend!

10/14/2016

02/21/2016

White Knights form up as they get ready to March with 13 Knights in the parades at Universal Studios, Orlando Florida.

11/12/2015

The White Knight Precision Drill Team performed at Fayette Middle School last week!

10/24/2015

2015 White Knights giving back to the community by completing 9 hours of community service today! ESA

10/21/2015

Fall 2015 Knights getting ready to give blood! ESA!

10/09/2015

White Knights guarding the Presidents house 2015

09/09/2014

Marion Military Institute is a Military Junior College which also offers unique military training curriculums including a Service Academy Preparatory Program and the Early Commissioning Program.