Issue link: http://maconmagazine.uberflip.com/i/1534028
D elicate white-pink petals fell from the spring trees on the edge of Carolyn Crayton Park. Big, frilly bows pointed to signs of softness and conviviality everywhere, advertising carousels and cotton candy stands, booths of performing puppies and pigs. Steps away from all of the pastel gentility of the Cherry Blossom Festival, though, was an unmarked warehouse with a circular track marked with tape on the concrete floor. Inside, more than a dozen women with helmets and knee pads were shouting as they pushed against one another. Their jerseys are emblazoned with cherry blossoms, too – but in a bold, hot pink far from the "blush and bashful" of Steel Magnolias, anchored by a mean-looking skull with horns. In capital letters on the back are their names. Jam Jam Binx. Narcoleptic Nightmare. The number 1337 (in web chatspeak culture, 'leet' or elite). They're the Middle Georgia Derby Demons, and if you don't know what they do? "It's girls on skates that hit each other." TA K I N G I T T O T H E R I N K That's all Esther Lee knew about the sport of roller derby when she saw a call on social media about getting a group to play in 2011. "It was in the park with the bears," said Lee, whose derby alter ego is Kimchi Kollider. That would be Tattnall Square Park, and it would be the start of a 15-year odyssey of ups and downs with locations and team members. "She is the OG," explained Debi Beckler, aka Sweet Amnesia. "In our first bouting season, she was an original bouting member." Kimchi, as she's often called by teammates, wasn't at the first meeting in the park with the bears, but she joined not long after the Tattnall gathering and has been part of the team ever since. She said that for a time the group practiced at Olympia Family Fun Center, then Bibb Skate Arena, and finally asked Macon-Bibb County Parks and Recreation if there was a space they could use. Enter the nondescript warehouse, with natural light streaming in from the industrial-sized windows. Old Christmas decorations are piled up in storage around the edges, and the rec football league comes in to get their gear every once in a while. But they are grateful for the stability to operate in one place, and the agreement with the county that provides it. They train twice a week there, and then occasionally enter competition with their international governing body, the Women's Flat Track Derby Association, or WFTDA (the players sound the abbreviation out, as "wift-duh"). At press time, the team was practicing for a meet with Peach State Roller Derby, out of Cobb County. Right now, their team captain is Bridgette Howard, or Queen B, who's been doing derby for 12 years but came onto the Derby Demons in 2019. They get LEFT Team captain Bridgette Howard, known as Queen B, at the warehouse where the Middle Georgia Derby Demons practice. April/May 2025 | maconmagazine.com 49