“It was awful and I cried the whole time,” Katelyn Jones, a senior varsity cheerleader from Lewis Cass, said. Katelyn cheered her last high school football game during sectionals. She went up to her mom, knowing it was her last high school football game, at the end of the game and her mom held her while she cried. Her last game was very hard and when it comes to be her last basketball game, it will be even harder and even more tears. Her favorite part of cheering her last football game was seeing all the boys, that she had cheered for the past six years, after awards and realizing they were all still friends even though football was over.

Katelyn’s favorite cheer was the first cheer she ever learned and performed this cheer for her seventh grade tryouts “Hey what do you say?” She has been a cheerleader for nine years all together. She started her fourth grade year at the YMCA in Kokomo. She never actually planned on cheering in junior high or high school. One of her friends convinced her to at least tryout and she made it! The hardest part about cheerleading is trying not to take advantage of everything. She said, “The freshmen this year get to cheer Varsity games.” Back when she was a freshman, she had to sit out her whole basketball season.

Cheerleading is the only sport she does, but she wants to manage boys track this year. When she isn’t cheering, she is keeping busy with drama club and the band which she just returned from marching in the parade at Disney in Florida. Cheerleaders do a ton of activities throughout the entire summer and school year, from cheer camp to the kiddie camp in February, from cheering at football games to building at basketball games and also dancing at the halftime show. Out of everything they do though, Katelyn’s favorite is building and dancing. She likes to “bust out her sick moves” and throw her flyer up really high in the air using her strong muscles.

When Katelyn was a seventh grader, she never thought she would want to move on to the next level and cheer in college or even professional. Now she really wants to cheer at IUK. She has to learn how to tumble before she can tryout. Katelyn loves cheering and is glad that her friend encouraged her to try it back in seventh grade. She has so much fun coming up with the music and dance moves they do!