Joyce Thimgan was just ten years old when she became mesmerized with baton twirling. Little did she know that she would one day become Nebraska's first Golden Girl.

She won nearly 400 trophies and toured the United States after graduating from Lincoln High. Thimgan was a 22-year-old freshman when she became the first female member of the Nebraska Marching Band.

It was September 23rd of 1961 when she made her Memorial Stadium debut and she remembers it like it was yesterday, "Big Bertha was a huge drum and they put a paper siding on it and I burst out of it, not even knowing what I was going to see when I came out cause it was all new." Very new! Because it was the first NU football game she had ever attended, "You know, I think back and I remember the roar of the crowd. It was just one big solid roar and red, red, red. And I remember the music starting so I need to go and I don't remember being afraid once I got out there so I continued for 4 years to enjoy the red."

Up until the fall of '61 the Nebraska Marching Band was made up entirely of men, but Joyce was accepted immediately, "The male members of the band were my brothers, we were a family unit that was very nice."

It was Joyce's mom that put the gold in the Golden Girl, "My mother made all the uniforms. She sewed each sequin on separately with a bead to secure it."

At the beginning of Joyce's sophomore year in 1962 Bob Devaney took over as the leader of the Cornhuskers and the young twirler remembers her first meeting with a very charismatic coach, "I remember this day, it was a beautiful day and he was mannerly, kind a gentlemen, friendly."

Joyce says it was a great honor to join Coach Devaney on the 1963 schedule card, "He wished me good luck and I wished him good luck with the team and it was the beginning."

The beginning of an amazing era in Nebraska football, "I'm still in awe of what I got to do."

Joyce also has another husker first on her resume. After she graduated from UNL in 1965, Joyce became the very first flag corp director in Nebraska history.