On most Friday nights in the fall, you will find the local football stadium filled with people from all over the community cheering on their local athletes. Leading the charge on those cheers and keeping the crowd hyped up is the cheer squad. This holds true for the Gans High School cheerleaders. Tasha Holmes is the cheer sponsor and has been for about eight years. She says that her team excels because they work well together.

“I feel that one of our biggest strengths is our teamwork,” Holmes said. “The girls on the squad get along great with each other and they are super encouraging to each other when learning a new skill.  Another strength of ours is that the girls are fearless when it comes to trying new things with dances or stunts.”

Holmes’ squad of cheerleaders loves to cheer and everything that comes along with it, but it is not their only focus while in high school.

“The nine girls on our cheer squad are not just cheerleaders for our school,” she said. “They split their time between cheer, softball, and basketball, as well as having jobs.  Four of our girls play on the softball team and three of them play on the basketball team.  So when they are not cheering you will still find them in some sort of Grizzlies athletics.”

Emily Phillips is a senior co-captain on the cheer team. She says that she enjoys being a part of such a great group and influencing the younger Gans students.

“I love that we lift each other up no matter the circumstances,” she said. “When we are challenged with something, no matter what it is, we never say we can’t do it, we always try. One thing I enjoy most is seeing the little kids faces light up every time they see us and how happy they get when it is time for mini cheer.”

The team’s junior co-captain, Chloe Bowden, enjoys cheering on the other athletes at her school.

“I love the excitement that I get to bring to games,” Bowden said. “I love the closeness cheering brings to me and my team. I also love that my team is like a family and we cooperate very well together.”