Her legacy at North Carolina A&T State University may be that she was the first female drum major of the Blue and Gold Marching Machine, but it is the sum total of her Aggie Experience that drives her success as an emergency room physician.

“Different experiences at A&T prepared me for medical school,” Kellye Worth Hall said. “Because I was in the band, I had to become more efficient with my time. We practiced for many hours so I had a limited amount of time to study.  It helped improve my study skills and actually kept me from procrastinating because I didn’t have time to mess around.”

She credits her membership processes for Tau Beta Sigma National Honorary Band Sorority Inc. and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. and her time in the band for growing a thick skin.

“In my third and fourth years of medical school the attending physicians would question all of the medical students as well as the residents in morning rounds and they could be rather brutal,” she said. “Interestingly enough, by being put on the spot in band practices and when going through the membership processes in both sororities, I grew out of my sometimes shy character.”

Hall, the eldest of three sisters, is a second generation Aggie who cannot recall missing a single homecoming.

“I was truly “Aggie born, Aggie bred...” Both of my parents went to A&T,” she said. “I had a couple uncles, go to A&T.  My sisters went to A&T and I have a cousin who is currently a freshman at A&T.”

Being the band’s first female drum major, Hall has become a mainstay in the Alumni Band during homecoming.

“Even though it has been 13 years since I was drum major, people continue to look for me marching in the tunnel at Homecoming,” she said. “They tell me I still got it. Current band members look up to me because of it.”

She graduated from N.C. A&T in May 2000 with a bachelor’s in biology. Hall then went on to the demands of medical school at The Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University. Her time as drum major prepared her for life as a black woman doctor.

Women are frequently overlooked for positions they are qualified for just because they are women,” Hall said.

“I’m not expected to be a doctor because I’m a black woman and people assume I’m the nurse.  Breaking a barrier in A&T’s band just drives me to look beyond what I’m expected to do and do much greater.”

Hall is still actively involved with the Theta Zeta chapter of Tau Beta Sigma at A&T is a lifetime member of National Alumni Association of Tau Beta Sigma and Delta Sigma Theta. She and her husband, Eric, live in Charlotte. She works in the emergency department at Carolinas Medical Center-University.