“We want not only to promote school spirit within the school and community but to create and develop true spirit within ourselves. While we do all the typical spirit raising activities and physical training, we strive to improve our character, responsibility, trustworthiness, citizenship, fairness, and caring through the various activities we support. While we are often considered to be a top program, we consider the strength of our team not only by what people see but what we are able to do for others,” say the Hinsdale Central High School cheerleaders.

Hanford High School
Richland, Washington
Coach Kim Mayer
GPA: 3.26

Hanford High School cheerleaders focus on promoting school pride and spirit, embodying good citizenship, and leading by example on the sidelines and in the classroom. They do all of this while holding their grades up, being involved on campus, and taking time to support their community.

The Falcon cheerleaders have encouraged school spirit to the student body by changing their basic “purple and gold” days to actual themes each week, and they center everything they do for the game that week on their theme. They team also takes time the week before school starts, making posters and signs to welcome back the student body. They meet the night before school to make over 200 posters, design the sidewalks with chalk art, and plan how to welcome back the students. The cheerleaders say, “By setting the tone on the first day of school, we have set the ball in motion for one amazing year filled with school spirit, pride in our school and a sense of community at HHS!”

One of Hanford’s top community service activities is the Pink Game they organize each year in honor of breast cancer. To make the game extra special, they center everything around the color pink by blowing up over 400 pink balloons, decorating the bleachers with pink streamers, and awarding the fan who wears the most pink. They also promote the game to everyone in their community by going on a local news station and raise money by creating a t-shirt, setting up donation buckets at concession stands, and walking around the stadium collecting money at the game. They raised over $1,000 this year! Other charity events they are involved in are Relay for Life, which is a tradition for Hanford cheerleaders and Pumpkins for Kids, a project centered on kids at the Women’s Domestic Violence Shelter.

Oak Harbor High School
Oak Harbor, Washington
Coach Pam Headridge
GPA: 3.4

Oak Harbor’s team mission is “Make a Splash, Make a Difference, Live out Loud.” The cheerleaders live up to this mission statement. They feel it is important to not just talk about what they should do, but to actually live it. They developed this statement to remind themselves to make a difference in their school, community and personal lives.

They do everything they can to get students involved at school; one of their many ways is choosing a ‘Fan of the Week’. Each week, the cheerleaders pick their most spirited fan. The person who receives this award gets a t-shirt, spirit-tagged bracelet, special headband, and their picture is posted on a bulletin and on the cheer web site.

When these cheerleaders aren’t working on building school spirit, they are helping out in their community. One of the many community activities they participate in is a ‘Challenge Series for Kids with Special Needs.’ For nine years, they have been cheering on the special needs riders at the start and the end of the race. On top of that, the Oak harbor cheerleaders granted a down syndrome students wish by letting her cheer at a wrestling game.

Halls High School
Knoxville, Tennessee
Coach Cheri Duncan
GPA: 3.53

“Paint the Town Red” is the Halls’ theme this year. The cheerleaders said, “Every hour spent promoting school spirit and performing community service is seen as strokes of love.” One of successful spirit raising activity they participate in is called, “Painting the School Red.” For this, they hand out goodie bags to the players, award pizza to the most spirited fans in the stadium, and decorate the school.

This team also feels it is important to give back to the community. The cheerleaders received the Presidents Volunteer Service Award. This award recognizes individuals who have made it a lifelong commitment to volunteer. Some of the community service projects they have done this year include Home of the Red Devils Host Walk for Autism, Halls Community Park Cheerleading, and extra activities for Paint the Town Red.

“In addition to school events, our cheerleaders have involved themselves in over 500 hours of community service. It is an honor to recommend them,” said Athletic Director, Jason Webster.

Costa Mesa High School
Costa Mesa, California
Coach Kori Johnson
GPA: 3.46

Costa Mesa High School emphasizes the necessary skills to mature emotionally and academically while improving the quality of their squad and building self-confidence in all of their members. The cheerleaders impress their school by building school spirit and spending time in the community. Some of the spirit activities they are involved in are a Mustang Spirit Hunt, Mustang Fan Throw, and Mustang Spirit Bus.

“We noticed that there were not many fans in the stands during away games: we wanted to know why,” said the cheerleaders. They found out many of the kids had no way to get to the away games, so they came up with the idea of turning the cheer bus into a spirit bus! The girls said, “We always have so much extra room on our bus to games, so we allow students to sign up to come to the games with us!”

When they aren’t busy building school spirit, they are helping out in their community. The girls are encouraged to join other clubs on campus, eight of the squad members were the founding members of the pink ribbon club. Academics are a priority as well. The entire varsity squad is enrolled in at least one or more advanced placement classes.

Monarch High School
Louisville, CO
Coach Cathy Greene
GPA: 3.69

According to Monarch cheerleaders, the greatest rewards in life are found through hard work, focus, dedication, sacrifice, respect, pride, teamwork, and passion. This group of girls strives to live up to each of those adjectives daily by focusing their time on academics, charity work, and spirit raising. They are most proud of their thriving scholastic achievements, being a team that has many girls on the Honor Roll, several members who received All State First Academic Team, and were awarded the 2008 Colorado High School Athletics Association Academic Award as a team for their combined GPA.

Monarch’s community service activities include Relay for Life, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Foundation Night Walk fundraiser, visiting a living facility with residents with Alzheimer’s disease, and making Christmas boxes for underprivileged children all over the world. And their spirit doesn’t stop with community service. They support their athletic teams by making them car ribbons, treats, and posters before games. This year, they handed out 700 popsicles to all the sports teams and band members at a hot summer practice. On the night of their Halloween football game, the team passed out hundreds of glow necklaces to “light things up” at the game. One student said of the Monarch cheer squad, “The word ‘spirit’ in the dictionary should = Monarch cheerleaders!”

Academic Magnet High School
Charleston, SC
Coach Heather Benton
GPA: 4.13

Building well-rounded and high-achieving athletes, promoting school spirit in various ways, improving community service and outreach programs, and being strong role models and leaders in the student body and community perfectly describe the Academic Magnet High School cheerleader’s purpose and are why they are continuously a strong team each year. Besides coming from a school that has been ranked seventh in the nation academically by Newsweek, the cheerleaders have become well known in the city of Charleston by dedicating time to others in their community and organizing and participating in school spirit programs.

Some of Academic Magnet’s community involvement includes conducting a two-week cheerleading camp for elementary kids at the Jewish Community Center, assisting with the Special Olympics, and promoting the MDA Shamrocks fundraiser to fight Muscular Dystrophy. When the team is not busy with charity work, they raise school spirit by volunteering to help new students at Freshman Orientation, participating in Chick-Fil-A Spirit Night held the first Thursday of each month, and working to win the Sertoma Classic, a jamboree/contest that draws large crowds and the cheerleaders with the most fans standing, best decorations, and most signs wins the award.

Franklin High School
Franklin, North Carolina
Coach Jennifer Turner-Lynn
GPA: 3.0

GPA: 3.4

The key mission for Temescal Canyon High School cheerleaders is to promote Titan Pride. They do this by being role models in the community as well as in the classroom. Some of their charity work includes the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life and organizing a holiday luncheon for their local senior center with Christmas carols, door prizes and gifts. This year, after their local animal shelter burned down, and almost 40 animals lost their lives, the team participated in the United Way’s Day of Caring where they spent a day cleaning cages, filling food bowls, walking the animals and giving them the TLC they need while trying to find each of them a home.

Inspiring other students to have spirit is important to Temescal Canyon cheerleaders. They go above and beyond to attend all sporting events and are continuously complemented by opposing teams on their dedication to their athletics with comments such as, “We wish our cheerleaders did what you do.” They also give out mascot-themed seat cushions, foam sticks, and #1 spirit fingers at each game, which brings more people to the games each week. This year, Prime Ticket, an affiliate of Fox Sports Network chose their school to film the Game of the Week and the cheerleaders worked hard to make it extra special by organizing a grand-finale to the show with a performance including the dancers, color guard, and band.

The Ursuline High School cheerleader’s number one goal each year is to learn, lead, and serve. They live up to this by working together to build a strong, award-winning team, inspiring and leading their student body, and having a positive impact on everyone they meet. They always make sure they have team spirit by showing their bond to others around them. One way they do this is by making signs for each cheerleader’s locker to remind her that no matter where she is, she is always a member of the team. To inspire students to have spirit, the squad lives by the theme, “Are You Koalified?” meaning do you always have Koala spirit? The theme is centered around pep rallies and games, and it reminds students what true school spirit is all about.

West Bloomfield’s goal this year was to support their schools athletic programs, involve themselves in community service projects and always exhibit good sportsmanship. The cheerleaders raised school spirit by trying to reach as many people as they could. They did this by decorating the entrances where every student, faculty member and visitor must go through, thereby, insuring they reached the maximum amount of people.

The cheerleaders also understand how important it is to continue to support our economy. The cheerleaders gave thanks to the ones who kept shopping even though our country is going through a tuff time. They did this by cheering on the shoppers at the Macy’s 150^th Anniversary. As a squad they managed to serve more than 1,000 hours of community service on their own.