The Ripon High cheer team had a successful year cheering on your Indians. Last Friday, October 26, 2022, was Ripon’s big rivalry game against Escalon. Along with that, it was also senior night for the football players and cheerleaders. This year’s seniors on the cheerleading team are Taylor Burton, Heaven Elisary, Ali Haines, and Kaitlyn Esenwein. The journalism team interviewed some of the cheerleaders and asked them how cheer has impacted their high school years and why they have kept up with cheerleading. 

The cheer team captain, Ali Haines, had some wonderful things to say about her passion for cheer. She says, “I’m really glad I didn’t give up on myself and I kept going with cheer. I believe cheer opened avenues for me when meeting new people. You’re very connected with your team and I wouldn’t have made a lot of my friends without it.”

Ali has been on the cheer team for all 4 years of high school. She was even given the opportunity this year to be the cheerleading captain. Ali has a fun, witty spirit that keeps the cheer team in a positive environment. The way she talks about cheer shows how much passion and love she has for the sport, even though she was new to it her freshman year.

All of the cheer girls talk highly of the cheer team and most done it all 4 years of high school and have even done cheer before high school. All of the seniors have also done at least 1 year on the competition cheerleading team as well.

“Overall, I think cheer impacted my life and also created me into the person I am today. It pushed me to be more outgoing and become more open-minded to understand teamwork,” says Heaven Elisary, senior homecoming queen.

Heaven talks about how cheer impacted her life greatly. Cheer has pushed her to become more involved in our school’s activities and she is even now involved in leadership as well.

Taylor Burton has participated in cheerleading all 4 years of high school as well and this year decided to try out the competition team.

“I would say one thing that has been great about cheer is making friends. I’m generally not a person that branches out to make friends but when you’re in cheer you automatically become close to people. We all spend a lot of time together every day so it has made my social skills stronger,” says Taylor Burton, senior varsity cheerleader.

Our last senior of the 2022-2023 school year is Kaitlyn Esenwein. Kaitlyn participated in cheer for her junior and senior year and as well participated in competition cheer her junior year of high school.

“I felt like cheer gave me a purpose and gave me something to do with my time. It made my high school experience much better.”