Explode! Ignite! Fire It Up Alright!

The 2022-23 cheer season has come to an end. The season runs from September to February and consists of two teams: 7th and 8th. In order to be on the team, students must try out the year before the season begins. Tryouts start March 20th and go through the 22nd. 

7th grader Alayna Bivens said, “I thought it would be fun since I dance and my sister does cheer so I decided to try out.” During tryouts, the girls learn a cheer, a chant, and a dance at a three-day tryout clinic. On the third day, they take the material they learn and try out for the team. Girls who make the team will then have a two-day camp in July at Washburn Rural High School to prepare for the Rural Spirit Showcase and perform a routine with both the 7th and 8th grade squads. 

During the cheer season, cheerleaders will cheer at football games, girls basketball games, and boys basketball games. 8th grader Delainey Wilkerson says, “I prefer cheering at basketball games because they are shorter and you are closer to your friends to talk to.” At practice, cheerleaders practice their chants and cheers, make game plans, and do stunts to get prepared for games. 8th grader Addison Mcpike said, “My favorite stunt is our Ruby Slipper with Greer, Avery, and Evie.” Lots of good memories come with being on the cheer team. McPike’s favorite memory is about a time when the squad got in trouble and the coach made them run during the 7th grade boys basketball practice. “We were messing around while we were running, so Coach Garland screamed at us to go back up to the cheer room and I started crying.” However, Wilkerson said, “I don’t really have a favorite memory, everything you do kind of just becomes one and then it’s just what you remember and what you don’t.”

Head Coach Michelle Lawson always thought that coaching cheer would be a fun experience. “I had such an amazing experience of my own cheering that I thought coaching could be an extension of that.” Lawson’s aunt and her squad made Lawson a “mascot cheerleader” with a cute uniform that looked like theirs when she was in kindergarten. In her middle school, they did not have a cheer team, so she went to the principal and started one. Lawson also cheered in high school and even in college. Lawson’s most challenging thing about coaching is “trying to manage the teenage drama that always creeps in and it’s so hard to make everyone happy and that is just not realistic.” Lawson’s favorite cheer is a time-out tradition called “Color Shout.” “Cheerleaders and the crowd both participate and really enjoy it,” Lawson said. “That is what makes coaching fun, being able to see the girls get the crowd on their feet and into the spirit of things.” 7th grader Maggie Randall also likes the Color Shout. Randall said her favorite memory from this season was, “the first color shout that we ever did.” Lawson’s favorite stunt to watch 7th graders do is their “ball back into a split because it took them only a few tries to figure this stunt out and they do it very well.” 

Lawson is also proud of the 8th grade team. “The 8th graders are so incredibly talented and have been since I first started working with them. It is so hard to pick one favorite stunt they do because they are so good at nearly everything they try.” Lawson said, “My favorite memories from this year are performing Rural Showcase both at the competition and for our home crowd because all girls on the squad work so hard to learn and retain all the material for the performance and they perform it with such power. I also love the days we get to have parties with no practice and I get to just watch the girls be teenage girls and laugh and have fun.”