With the advent of the 2024-2025 school year, the Highland Park cheer community has celebrated their 100th anniversary.
Founded in 1925, the cheer team originally consisted of a “pep squad,” consisting of two associates and a cheerleader, whose jobs were to bring alive school spirit. Slowly, the team began to morph into a much larger squad of high school girls. Change has also been highly featured in more recent years, such as the team shifting to combine the JV and Freshman cheer squads.
“I definitely think that we are leaving it better than we found it,” senior cheer captain Bella Bowman said. “It [the team] has upwardly grown in the last four years so much.”
To honor the growth and changes that came with this 100th year anniversary, the cheer team set up several events to bring back memories. These included a cheer-focused pep rally, where a documentary on the evolving cheer team was featured, and a centennial celebration party. This centennial celebration involved inviting 650 cheer alumni back to Highland Park for a celebration and reunion.
To showcase all of these memories, many alumni worked on the documentary, which showed cheer from its inception to now.
‘We found some old uniforms, we talked to old members, we talked to old sponsors,” Barnes said. “We also talked to the very first Scotsman, and they just talked about their experience in the program.”
Overall, the focus of this centennial program is to enforce not only the many years that the team has been alive creating cheer for the community, but also the bonds made between teammates
“If you look across the country, there is no other program that’s been around for a hundred years,” cheer coach Emily Barnes said. “We’re like the only one and I think that’s so special… the bonds that these girls make together is something that’s also so special.”
This much is true for cheer alumni Margaret Bonnet, who said that the friendships she made in cheer are still valuable to her after she has graduated.
“The most memorable part of cheer is the friendships made,” Bonnet said. “Being a cheerleader I made some of the closest friends I’ve ever had.”
This idea lapses to current cheerleaders as well, with them also describing the strong bonds they have.
“We are so close, this [current] varsity team actually was on JV and freshman cheer together two years ago,” Bowen said. “We won NCA [National Cheerleaders Association], which was really, really cool”
Additionally, the cheer team has acted as a pillar for young girls in the community to aspire to, which was originally the case for Bowen when she was young.
“I started cheering and tumbling when I was around five years old when my mom put me in a gym because I literally just wanted to be upside down, I swear that’s that was my whole thing and I started tumbling and I really grew a passion for it,” Bowen said. “[Now] I love the competition aspect of it and the performance aspect, but I also love the sidelining game day aspect, which is what I started in around eighth grade.”
This football game aspect is also a favorite in the cheer community.
“Their favorite tradition is running out at the football games, they all hold hands and kind of like make a line” Barnes said.
After these 100 years of cheer, team members such as Bowen agree that they hope they can continue the momentum of the team and uphold the value of growth. Similarly, they hold a message to young girls that they too could be part of the next generation of cheerleaders.
“If there are any little girls out there that are watching this, just remember one day you could be in this white uniform; one day that could be you.” Barnes said. “So keep working and keep trying and keep doing your best every single day.”
